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GERALDINE 



A SOUVENIR OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 



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GERALDINE 



A SOUVENIR OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 






Illustrated 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

We Htoerstoe Areas CambriUje 

1909 



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COPYRIGHT, l88l, BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 

COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY TICKNOR & CO. 

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY ALPHONSO A. HOPKINS 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies Received 

Copyrtitnt Entry . 
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PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 



As they are about sending to press this illustrated edition 
of " Geraldine," its publishers forward to me a proof of the 
original Preface, and kindly ask, u Have you anything new, 
or different, or additional, that you would like to say ? " At 
once I recall certain critiques of the book which have ap- 
peared, and wonder if any word from its unknown author 
will serve convincing purpose ; for the critiques mentioned 
did not hesitate to discredit a simple statement which that 
original Preface made, and to affirm, despite of it, that 
" Geraldine " was written in imitation of " Lucile." Will 
they now accept a reiteration of the fact that this effort was 
determined upon before the publication of " Lucile," and was 
put into complete form before the writer had read, or heard 
read, or otherwise learned the character of that rhythmic 
romance ? I fear not. Yet the fact stands ; and I prefer 
leaving it thus on simple record, unsupported by personality 
or argument, — for the many to acknowledge, as they have 
done heretofore ; for the few to doubt, if they choose. 



vi PREFACE. 

" Geraldine " has won friends. The inquiries, comments, 
commendations, criticisms, confessions, and correspondence 
which it has called out would form a large and rather inter- 
esting volume. Were they now at hand I might be tempted 
to fill several pages with extracts curious. I remember well 
one letter, from a gentleman of some literary repute in a 
Southern State, which, among other things, frankly said : 
" How you learned certain facts in my own experience that 
I supposed hidden from all the world, it puzzles me to tell." 
Of course I did not know them, any more than he knew the 
unknown author whom he addressed. But scores of testi- 
monies have come to me, showing in like manner how closely 
parallel these my pages run to the deep lines of many a 
human life. 

I feel warmly grateful to Messrs. Ticknor & Co. for thus 
adding to the feeble gifts of my pen the lavish graces of 
their book-making art. They have succeeded, far beyond all 
possibilities of mine alone, in producing a souvenir of the 
St. Lawrence, and a remembrance of the mountains, which 
those who best love American scenery will appreciate most. 



The Author of " Geraldine." 



Among the Mountains, 

July 27, 1887. 




PREFACE. 



Years ago I resolved to write a romance in the style of 
verse which follows. I chose this style as specially well 
adapted to a wide variety of expression, and because at that 
time, so far as I knew, no author had employed it at such 
length and for such purpose. When it was similarly made 
use of by an English poet, at a date much more recent than 
my resolve, his poem's popularity confirmed my choice as 
wise ; but I have refrained persistently from reading that 
poem, or hearing it read, or in any way learning of its char- 
acter, spirit, and scope, lest unconsciously I might borrow 
of its style or thought. Having now taken leave, as far as 
probably I ever can, of my own " Geraldine," I shall devote 
the earliest leisure accorded me to becoming acquainted 
with Owen Meredith's u Lucile." 




2Eist of Illustrations. 

[Drawn, engraved, and printed under the supervision of A. V. S. Anthony.] 

Geraldine Frontispiece 

Headpiece to First Preface 5 

Headpiece to Second Preface 7 

Headpiece to Illustrations 9 

Tailpiece to Illustrations 15 

"It is true that he took to occasional rhymes 

With an art that was rather instinctive at times " 21 

Tailpiece 24 

" She looked up at him then 

With a smile that he read as a sort of amen" 27 

" A man 

Standing there by the sea where the sand-reaches ran" 31 

Tailpiece 34 

On the Edge of the Town 35 



x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

" ' A right merry season we had at the table : 

I know 't would amuse you in turn, were I able 

To write out the many bright things that were said ' " 39 

Tailpiece 40 

The Approach to the Town ' 42 

The God of Love 51 

"Where the roses are blowing" 53 

Tailpiece 54 

" ' You forget 
That last evening we waited to see the sun set 
On the top of Mount Vision ' " 58 

" Or is still 
As the spring that begets yonder musical rill 
In its home in the wild" 60 

" Her throbbing 
Heart weary and tempted, and sore with its sobbing" 65 

Tailpiece 66 

" She smiled 

At his liberal purpose. She seemed like a child 

In her simple acceptance of pleasures to be" ....... . 69 

r 
"Over meadows of green with their velvety sod, 

To the steeps, that are harder to climb " 71 

Calumet, St. Lawrence River 72 

Twin Island, St. Lawrence River 74 

" He went out, and strolled down to the wharf, where the boats 

Lay awaiting the morrow" 76 

"The vessel's light bow, 
Deftly cutting the deep, slid along on the prow 
Of his boat, and upset it " 77 

"And he took 
The white hand that she offered him warmly" 79 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi 

Lighthouse, Alexandria Bay 80 

The Canadian Channel 81 

Entrance to Lake of the Isles 84 

" A cool, grassy point that projected 
From one of the islands was wisely selected, 
In sight of the Lake of the Isles" 87 

"All at once went aboard, and prepared to depart" 91 

"By and by they swung round, and across the broad sweep 

Of the river below, as along the soft steep 

Of the sky the late moon slowly climbed" 94 

Tailpiece 96 

"'I suspect Mrs. Lee knew the arts 
Of a finished coquette, and made playthings of hearts, 
In some earlier time'" 99 

Piazza, Crossmon's Hotel 102 

" A half shaded shore 
Gave them welcome ; its turf, that was mossy and sweet, 
Bunning down to the water to welcome their feet" 103 

" She was silent a little, and motionless sat, 

Looking into the depths of the shimmering deep " 108 

" The storm was at hand ; but the long 
Way was over at last, as he lifted the skiff 
Half its length on the sand, at the base of a cliff" 114 

" ' You have seen the white calla 
Unfold all its treasure of purity ' " 116 

"He rose to his feet where he knelt, 
Put her tenderly from him, and strode to the door 
As if panting for air" 118 

" ' With the aid 
Of a blanket, or two, and a pillow, I think 
You could rest very well'" 121 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Deer Island 126 

"Rising early, lie took 
His way down to the wharf" 129 

Point Marguerite, Alexandria Bay 131 

Tailpiece 132 

"The short, slow, lazy strokes of their boatman were swift 

To their longing desire. 5 T would have pleased them to drift" . . 141 

" Yet restless and troubled did Trent linger there 

By the casement" 143 

Boat Wharf, Crosshon's 144 

" To which message she speedily gave 
A complaining, pathetic response " 148 

" She pictured it well, 
And in spirit dramatic" 150 

"And he bowed, 
Self-possessed and amused, to the gathering crowd, 
And betook his way down to the river" 15 $ 

Bonnie Castle, Alexandria Bay 154 

"The beauties benignant 
Amid which he rowed could not suddenly quiet 
The feverish pulse" 156 

" Where the silver St. Francis, asleep in the sun, 

Smiled them welcome unworded" 161 

Tailpiece — Montreal Island 164 

Montreal erom the Islands 165 

" The next morning the height 
Of historic Cape Diamond first greeted his sight, 
And above the gray walls of the citadel hung 
The tricolor of Britain" 169 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii 

" ' And yet, 
If I lounge on the Terrace when Fashion has set 
Its gay current ' " 175 

Wolfe's Monument . 177 

"Its rugged and angular steeps 
Sloping gently and soft to the river that sleeps 
At their base" 179 

Tailpiece — Forget-me-nots 182 

" Yet her heart appeared swelliug to burst, 
And her lips were as dry as if parching with thirst " 187 

Tailpiece — Thistles 192 

"The Bay of Sweet Laughter, that looks up to heaven 

Untroubled and glad, — sunny Ha-Ha" 195 

Tailpiece 200 

"When Trent came at last, 
From her wearisome doubting and fearing she passed 
To a loving acceptance of good in to-day" 204 

Tailpiece 206 

" Yet calmly, he spoke, — 

'I suspect that you read 
With a vision much deeper than mine ' " 211 

" While he still on the reed of his purpose would lean, 

She made answer to answer of his" 219 

" ' Foolish tears ! As they fall 
Down my face, I am glad that hereafter not all 
Of my bitterest weeping can rob it of sweetness'" 221 

Tailpiece . # 222 

Early Winter in Rivermet 224 

'"I were less 
A weak woman, and more like a saint, could I hold 
To my faith without doubting forever'" 227 



xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 

Tailpiece 232 

" When to him, 
But a day or two later, this brief message came " 235 

" She began her reply with the utterance strong 

Of a passionate nature unmastered" 239 

Tailpiece 242 

" The roll and the sweep of their reaches are grand 

As the ocean unbounded" 245 

Tailpiece 248 

"From his wild mountaineering alone Trent returned 

To a town of the mines, for some letters expected " 250 

" ' You are near 
The next world, my poor fellow,' said Trent. 'Do you fear 
To go out of this into the other? ' " 257 

" ' It is noon ; but the end 
Of your life may appear like the close of a day. 
It is twilight for you ' " 261 

Tailpiece 262 

" - Believing you 'd learn 
In my arms to grow happy and strong, and return 
All I give you '" . 265 

Tailpiece 270 

"Through the white atmosphere 
He could see other peaks lifted far to the blue 
Of the sky; while the distance took boundaries new 
As he slowly ascended" 276 

"There were tears 
On his face. He fell prostrate, and swift the fleet years 
Passed before him as thus he lay prone " 279 

"He awoke 
As the storm gathered might, and a thunder-gun spoke 
Just above him with utterance awful. He sprung 
To his feet" . 281 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



xv 



Tailpiece 
Tailpiece 



"He gave her a picture, — as clear 
A reflection of her as she ever had faced 
At the mirror " 



"A flame 
Of indignant denial burned over her cheeks 



Tailpiece 
Tailpiece 



282 
288 

292 

295 
300 
308 



"As he turned 
At her sudden appeal, close in rear of him burned 
The hot breath of the blaze. He sprang down to the floor, 
And as quickly flew to her " 314 

Tailpiece 316 




W. P. Snyder, Charles Copeland, F. Myrick, Parker Hayden, 
and A. V. S. Anthony. 

^Initials anti Ornaments fog 
F. Myrick. 

lEngrafctngg ig 

A. V. S. Anthony, T. Johnson, Russell and Richardson, 
and F. H. Wellington. 



GERALDINE 




HERE is something of poetry born in us 
v , each, 

Though in many, perhaps, it is born 

without speech, — 
An existence but dumb and uncertain, 

that strives 

For expression in vain through the whole of their lives ; 
That is glad when the spring wears its beautiful smile, 
And is sad when all nature to tears would beguile ; 
That can feel in the summer a glory divine 
Thrilling on through the days in their silvery shine; 
That can drink in delight in its radiance rare 
When the mellow-hued autumn breathes peace like a prayer ; 
That can weep with the world in its woe of to-day, 
And to-morrow take part in its merriest play ; 
That can stand on the mountain-tops often, and see 
Where the far-away gardens of paradise be ; 
That can sound with its plummet of feeling the deeps 
Where despair in the darkness of destiny sleeps ; 
That can feel, and can be, yet can never express 
All the feeling and being its life may possess, 
But that yearns with a yearning no poet e'er knew 
In its silence of years for the speech of the few. 



20 GEBALBINE. 

He was barely a poet, this friend of my verse, 

Though the singers not seldom at measure are worse, 

And at rhyme ; for his ear was so delicate strung 

That it caught the clear music, whatever was sung, 

And was deaf to all discord, or listened as one 

For whom time of tormenting had early begun: 

He was less than a poet, if poetry means 

To bewilder the senses with fanciful scenes; 

To envelop each thought with such mystery round 

As to leave it a marvel of meaning profound ; 

To make semblance of passion, and tragedy act 

As if love were a lie, and all fiction were fact; 

To be chiefly unreal, yet ever to seem 

As if always the real came dressed in a dream. 

Yet men spoke of his poems with praise, though they said, 

" He is playing at verse," as delighted they read : 

" He was meant for a poet in earnest, but waits 

For a storm-flood of feeling to open the gates 

Of his soul, till the song that is hidden shall rise 

Over hearts that are hushed with a sudden surprise." 

It is true that he took to occasional rhymes 
With an art that was rather instinctive at times : 
You might call it a genius ; but what, in the test. 
Is a genius for doing, but doing it best? 
And although at poetic expression he caught 
Half the grace of a poet, and added the thought 
And the sentiment often, and many could praise 
With a flattery honest his lyrics and lays, 
He was not at his best in this work of his pen : 
For his speech was a power to move upon men : 
And he held that the work of his life was to speak 
As he might for the right, be it humble and weak : 
And his words were unfaltering, fearless, and strong 



GEBALDINR 



21 



In the ears of the world in complaint of the wrong. 
He was better at prose than at verse ; for he made 
Every sentence to cut like the stroke of a blade 
Never dull : he was quick to discover the sense 
Of all sophistries subtle ; and every pretence 
He would riddle and scathe with an irony born 
Of his genuine honor, his marvellous scorn. 



ill ili 










They had faith in his future, who frequently heard 
His defence of the true ringing out till it stirred 
Every heart to keen sympathy. But, as for him, 
It was little he thought of the years that were dim 
In the distance ahead. He was living to-day 
With its needs and its gifts ; and no cynic could say 
He was laggard of life. Full abreast of the hour 
Did he keep, never sparing of work or of power. 



22 GEEALDINE. 

He was spendthrift of being, without any heed 

For the want of the morrow, its duty or need. 

" Let the future take care of itself," was his thought : 

" If I care for the present, as every man ought, 

Do the work of a man with the will of a man, 

Tis enough." 

So he made neither purpose nor plan . 
For the future : he held no ambitious desire 
To mount up on his deed to a deed that was higher. 
No ideal he worshipped, of work or reward. 
As if he were a servant, and labor his lord, 
He would do every task that before him was set 
With his might, and the wages of work would forget 
In the pleasure of work, never counting it vain 
That he wearied his body, and wasted his brain, 
Without recompense fit ; since instinctive he knew 
That the best compensation for service most true 
Is but had in the serving ; that wages are small, 
Be they measureless even, if wages are all. 

Yet he wondered sometimes, in a curious way, 

How to-morrow would differ in work from to-day ; 

What its spirit would be ; what its impulse and scope ; 

What its faith and its feeling, its heart and its hope : 

And so wondering often, he stood, as it seemed, 

At the door of a duty of which he had dreamed 

In some dream of great doing, — a something so broad 

That it reached from his hand to the hand of his God, 

Taking in by its infinite measure and span 

The upholding of truth, the uplifting of man, 

In especial degree ; but he shrank as with fear 

From the possible future, unsought and too near. 

He was conscious that on in the years he would find 

More of life than might add to the peace of his mind ; 



GEEALDINE. 23 

Yet so vaguely he felt it, so faint did it seem, 
That he counted his consciousness only a dream, 
And gave heed to it rarely. 

One evening he wrote 
In such mood to the friend of his heart, — just a note. 
When the veil of his vision half lifted to show 
A few glimpses beyond : — 

" That you love me, I know ; 
That I love you, my darling, you feel just as sure, 
And that both of our loves to the end will endure. 
But the end ? 1 am here face to face with the dread 
That in pathways unlookecl for my feet must be led; 
That your life and my own are to drift far apart 
As the true from the false. There 's a cry in my heart 
Of regret and dismay ; for you measure the sum 
Of my wishes and wants, and your love has become 
The one thing of my craving, — none other so sweet 
And so strong and so helpful. None other could meet 
Just the need of my soul as you meet it. I feel 
That you feel this and know it ; and I should conceal 
Such a fancy as here I have named, but that you 
Have a faith that is strong, and a heart that is true, 
And will say I am morbid, and need but your kiss 
To return me the hope and the cheer that I miss. 

" I have told you before of the fancy I hold, 
That my work is to be by some duty controlled 
Which I may not discover till years have gone by ; 
And perhaps through some wilds of experience I 
Must pass in to my clear field of labor. My way 
Has been sunny and bright all along till to-day ; 
But I know, as I know that I live, that there are 
Heights and depths in my nature transcending by far 
All that yet I have measured. No gift is for nought, 



24 GEBALDINE. 

Be it even to suffer; and sorrow unsought 

May bear fruit that is sweet from the bitterest seed. 

You will see where this logic must certainly lead : 

Any gift is for ultimate use. We may wait 

All unknowing, unheeding, capacity great 

To enjoy or to suffer ; dead levels of life 

May reach onward before us; the wearying strife 

Of the days may go on without increase or rest; 

We may seem of but commonplace being possessed, 

With its commonplace ends to be met: but in time 

To some great height of gladness we sudden may climb, 

Or go down to some valley of grief, where the dark 

Never knows the sun's rising or song of a lark 

Singing straight into heaven, or amid all the din 

Of the every-day battle some peace may begin, 

Like the silence of God in its regal content, 

Till we learn what the lesson of yesterday meant. 

" But forgive me, my darling, for hinting of tears 

In the possible future. What comes with the years 

We '11 accept as we may, never dreaming of pain 

In the present; believing God's morrows are gain, 

Be they cloudy or bright, let them hold what they will. 

We are wedded to life, if for good or for ill, 

Or for better or worse ; and its issues must be 

As is best and is wisest for you and for me, 

If to-day we are faithful and trustful and true. 

And so love me, my darling, as I must love you." 





n. 



HALL we go and hear Trent to-night, Bell, 
at the Hall?" 

Major Mellen was making his afternoon 

call 
On the witty and beautiful Isabel Lee, 
Whom so often in leisure he dropped in to see. 
They were cousins, by kin or by common consent: 
If the former, 'twas distant. 

" You Ve heard about Trent ? " 

" He who wrote that sweet thing in the last magazine, 
Which you read me one night, — ' In my Passion Serene '? " 

" Yes, the same. * We were friends, he and I, long ago, 

As I told you, I think. He 's a man you should know, — 

Can talk poetry, prose, metaphysics, or sing 

His own songs to you even, with pathos to bring 

The quick tears to your cheek. He has sentiment strong, 

As you '11 see by and by, when you weep at his song ; 

But reform is his hobby : he '11 go for the Bight 

With a capital R, in his lecture to-night ; 

And they say as a speaker his powers are rare — 

I 've not heard him in years. But, good coz, have a care I 

He 's engaged to a lovely brunette, with dark hair 



26 GEBALDINE. 

And pink cheeks, like yourself: were her beauty but blonde, 
You might win him away with the contrast." 

" Beyond 
Any question he 's safe, my dear major. The man 
Who can sing of a passion serene, as he can, 
Must have little of passion to stir. I 'm afraid 
That your paragon wouldn't just suit me, — too staid 
And too deep. His philosophy matches not mine ; 
For love is n't as water. You sip it like wine, 
And grow giddy and wild with the tasting. His words, 
As you read them, were sweet as the singing of birds ; 
But I like not his faith." And her finely cut face 
Had a look that was puzzling. The very least trace. 
Of surprise had the major's. 

" You do not suppose," 
He remarked, "that the rhyme of a verse-maker shows 
His true feeling ? You never would take him to task 
For philosophy, sentiment, worn as a mask 
To conceal what is under ? A woman will veil 
What she feels in expression each lover must fail 
To unriddle ; and poets are privileged, too, 
As to much that they say, if not all that they do. 
If a poet pretend to write out of his heart, 
It is mainly pretence ; and the very best art 
That he has is in making men weep while he grieves 
Over fiction he never one moment believes, 
But they swallow as fact." 

She looked up at him then 
With a smile that he read as a sort of amen. 

" And so be it, what then ? " he continued. " Why, this : 

All the woes of a poet are idle ; his bliss 

Never blisters the paper he pours out his life on ; 

His pen's not a patent, particular siphon 



GERALDIXE. 



27 



To run off the liquid of love, in his verse, 
From his soul. If ecstatic, he 's simply unreal : 
His sonnets of love are to something: ideal, 



As the love that he sings." 



" You are bitter, now, major ; 



Sarcastic and bitter and foolish. I '11 wager 

You once took to sonnets yourself, when more callow. 

Don't let any talent you 've buried lie fallow ; 








Turn poet again, since the trick of deceit 
You have learned (if the sum of all poetry sweet 
Be pretence), which a poet must practise, and cover 
Your faith and your feeling when you are a lover." 



28 GEBALBINE. 

She laughed, — just a ripple of music from lips 
That too often put pearly white teeth in eclipse ; 
And he echoed her mirth rather languidly. 

" Well, 
It is certain I never plied you, Madame Bell, 
With my sonnets," he parried ; " and no other glances 
Than yours could allure me to making advances 
Afoot or on Pegasus then. I '11 not say 
By the light of whose look and whose smile I might stray 
From my loyalty now. I confess I am grown 
Rather fickle to love and to truth, as is known 
To the most of my friends." 

And a smile half-sarcastic 
Ran over his features so mobile and plastic. 
" But this fellow Trent, he 's as true, on my soul, 
As the needle, much boasted, is true to the pole ; 
Not but that a bright woman like you, cousin dear, 
With an iron heart in her, if coming too near, 
Might attract him and win him, and hold him a while ; 
But he'd turn by and by from her lessening smile 
To his star in the north." 

" To his passion serene, 
He would say, I suppose. That remains to be seen " — 

" And be tested ? Perhaps. You must hear him to-night, 
And then let me present him. His theme may be trite ; 
But he '11 say what he says in so pleasing a diction, 
You '11 think to be fact, philosophical fiction 
The blankest, — at least for a little. No doubt, 
When the ring of his words into silence dies out, 
You will question your faith, and will count it absurd, 
And be freed from it quite. But the song of a bird 
You believe when you hear it (though haply it sing 
Of some hope whose fruition no morrow may bring) 



GEEALBINE. 29 

For the music that 's in it ; and Trent has a voice 
That may even your sensitive hearing rejoice. 
You will go if I call for you early ? " 

" I 'm free 
To confess I would like this young poet to see, 
Since you paint him so warmly. Invite him to sup 
With us after the lecture. I '11 brew him a cup 
Of sweet compliments, if he deserve it, and learn 
What he thirsts for the most from the world in return 
For his gifts to the world, — whether praises or pence ; 
Whether garlands of roses, or blossoms of sense ; 
Whether wooing or worship. Your geniuses crave 
Very much of their friends : you must serve them as slave, 
Or cajole them as equal, with flattery sweet 
To their taste ; you must fawningly lie at their feet, 
Or devotedly feed them with bonbons. The more 
You bestow, will they ask. They 're a terrible bore 
To your patience, and make a most liberal drain 
On your pity." 

" Be merciful, Bell ! It is plain 
That you 're jealous of genius. Such comments as those 
I must flatly resent." And he, laughing, arose. 
" For we should not be blamed, who are pets of the stars 
And the heirs of the gods. Any failing that mars 
Our strict beauty of life is a fault half divine." 
And with playful assumption, and graceful incline 
Of the head in adieu, he departed. 

Her look 
Of amusement departed as well, and she took 
From the table a volume of verse that a friend 
For her reading had lately been thoughtful to send, — 
A collection of poems as varied in tone 
As in merit. But one of its pages alone, 
As she absently turned them, arrested her thought, — 



30 GEBALDINE. 

A few stanzas of sentiment, common, but fraught 
With a passionate longing some time to be met 
In the hope of the poet. The name that was set 
At the end caught her eye ere attention she lent 
To the poem itself: it was Percival Trent; 
And the title prefixed to the verse chanced to be 
E^ut suggestive of meaning. It ran : — 



BY THE SEA. 

I stood one day beside the sounding sea, 
Amid a treeless waste of barren sand ; 

The billowy breezes soft blew over me, 

And wooed me sweetly with their kisses bland. 

A subtle something lingered in their breath, 
And charmed me long to glad forgetfulness : 

I thought no more of failure, pain, and death, 
No more I dreaded weakness and distress. 

Far, far away the glistening billows gleamed, 
A-splendor with the summer's silver light; 

And, looking seaward, blissfully I dreamed 
Of balmy islands somewhere out of sight. 

And fondly still, with kisses warm and sweet, 
The breezes wooed me to a, calm content; 

While ocean, sounding softly at my feet, 
Its tuneful charm to the half-silence lent. 

So with me ever, as I weary stand, 

And look far out upon the waters wide, 

I catch some hint, in all the breezes bland, 
Of shady isles that somewhere yonder hide. 



GERALDINR 31 

Where now I wait, a dreary waste may be, 
With no green thing to glad my longing eyes: 

Far, far before, across the sounding sea, 
Are hid the balmy eyes of Paradise. 



As she read, her quick soul caught the cry of unrest 
Welling up through the words, from a hungering breast, 
And w r ent answering out ; for she stood, as it seemed, 
By a waste of Avild water whose billows ne'er gleamed 
With the light of a sail bringing gladness and peace ; 




And she longed, with a longing that never might cease 
Till she neared their glad haven of infinite calm 
And content, for the Paradise Islands of Balm. 
Could it be that across the wide deep, and beyond 
All its possible shipwreck, there waited the fond 
Wooing breezes of faith and of love ? Would they seem 
To her ever as more than a vanishing dream? 
Would she find in their lingering kisses a quiet 
From doubt and distrust that forever ran riot 
Within her? Would hunger of heart, and the pain 



32 GERALDINE. 

Of unsatisfied want, and the wearisome reign 
Of regret, have an end? 

So she questioned, and read 
Yet again and again the brief stanzas that led 
To a vision of loneliness dreary: — 

A man 
Standing there by the sea where the sand-reaches ran 
To slip under its waves and be hidden from view ; 
Far before him the shimmering billows of blue 
Blending on with the tint of the sky; not a sail 
In the distance to hint of a cheer-giving hail ; 
Not a bird flying over, with glint of its wings 
To recall the sweet song that some dear singer sings ; 
And behind him no hills with their glories of green, 
And a ribbon of silver soft winding between; 
Only dull, level reaches of dry, barren sand 
Sloping up from the sea, with no sign of the hand 
Of a fellow in sight, not a house, nor a tree, 
Only solitude, silence, and dreariness ; he, 
With his hungering eyes, looking out on the main, 
With a longing of soul like the passionate pain 
Of a lover unloved, — looking out to behold 
Far away in the future, whose billows have rolled 
Weary years at his feet, the fulfilment of life, 
The incoming of love, like a peace after strife 
Of long lasting, the ultimate gladness of time 
Where the gladness and peace are forever sublime. 

You may read all she read without seeing as much 
As she saw : it may be that the delicate touch 
Of her fancy is wanting; the mood that was hers 
May not move you with sensitive impulse that stirs 
To each breath of expression ; no absolute need 
May possess you, and hold you, till all that you read, 



GEBALBINE. 33 

While you thrill in its holding, gives hint of reply 
And revealing. The fact matters not. 

By and by 
She arose from her vision, came hack to herself, 
And the volume laid carelessly by on a shelf. 
" It is idle," she thought, " to make semblance of woe 
In this fashion. No rhymes of a verse-maker show 
His true feeling : the major was right." And she smiled. 
" This new poet my sympathy quick has beguiled 
Without any deserving. It may be he missed 
For a moment the touch of some lips he had kissed 
Long ago ; or it may be he felt but a blind, 
Common craving for something beyond; or his mind 
May have taken the most of its dolorous tone 
From a liver disordered ; or even my own 
Vital organs may suffer," — but, looking across 
To the opposite mirror, she noted no loss 
Of the color of health in her beautiful face, 
And she laughed at the fanciful thought. 

For the space 
Of a half-hour she sat there alone in the room, 
Till the shadows of twilight had gathered to gloom, 
In a reverie deep. The rare smile faded out, 
Giving place to a look as of questioning doubt ; 
And the eyes that had warmed many hearts with their glow 
Had a tenderer light, as if tear-drops could flow 
Without warning. Again she was living the past, 
With no cloud of regret o'er its loveliness cast; 
But just ready to bloom were her roses of youth : 
She had faith in herself, she believed in the truth, 
She could trust in her kind. 

To be true to the best 
That is in us, nor falter nor fail in the test, 



34 



GERALDINE. 



Let whatever may come, — this is measurement just 
Of the sum of our life ; to keep safely in trust 
All the good that we have, and to answer at length 
For our being and doing, the weakness or strength 
Of our hope and our help in the varying strife, — 
There is nothing beside in this problem of life. 

Had she faltered and failed in the test we have named ? 
If she had, by the perfect alone be she blamed. 
It is easy to falter and stumble and fall ; 
But a pitiful God is the Father of all. 




III. 




Y Own Geraldine Hope, — 

" It is far in the night ; 
But I'm wakeful and restless, and so 

I will write 
A few words for your reading before 
I retire. 
I have had a long evening, yet short. 

" My desire 
For an audience large and attentive was met ; 
I have never faced one more inspiriting yet. 
When I rose to my feet, the same tremor possessed me, 
The same idle terrors inthralled and oppressed me, 
That often I feel in the face of a crowd ; 
But they vanished, so soon as I, trembling, had bowed, 
And had uttered a word. 




36 GEBALDINE. 

"It is regal to stand 
And to sway every will with a wave of your hand, 
Or a shade of your voice. It is gladness supreme 
To be thrilled for a time to the final extreme 
Of your consciousness, through the quick thrill of your 

speech, 
And to know of a certainty strong that you reach 
And . take hold of the hearts of your hearers ; to feel 
Their quick thrilling responsive ; to know they are leal 
To the kingship within you. 

" The gift that is mine, 
To a certain extent, is a dower divine, 
And I shrink from its use, I confess, now and then. 
It is such a grand mission, — to move upon men, 
To determine their thought and their faith, to impel 
Them to action, to guide and direct them, to tell 
Where they miss the true path, where the pitfalls may wait, 
To beget stronger love for the right, stronger hate 
For the wrong. And, however we work, at the best 
It is little we do that is well ; for the rest, 
May we lightly be judged ! 

"I began to recite 
The events of the evening. Pray pardon the flight 
Of my pen in this manner. 

" The lecture was long, 
But was brief to my thinking. I found in the throng 
Of intelligent faces a few like your own, — 
Of the answering sort, that one seems to have known 
A long time ; that respond to whatever you say 
In a hearty and very encouraging way ; 
That a speaker soon learns to pick out here and there, 
And to give them, perhaps, an unduly large share 
Of his special attention. He reads the effect 
Of his argument in them ; he comes to expect 



GERALDINE. 37 

For his favorite thoughts recognition from these 

That the mass may not give : it would seem that he sees 

Not the many who hear him, but only the few 

Who respond. 

" By the side of a man whom I knew 
Years ago was a face of this type (not a face 
To be quickly forgotten when met), with a grace 
As of sorrow outgrown, but remembered, — a glow 
Of unconscious expression illuming it so 
As almost to transfigure it often. It had 
A half-hungering look in repose, as if sad 
Were the soul underneath it. 'T is needless to add 
'T was a woman's, — a wife's or a widow's you'd guess 
Without reasoning why ; not because there is less 
Of the sweetness of girlhood within it, but more 
Of the woman's completeness of beauty. 

< 'Before 
I had finished my lecture, I half comprehended 
The secret hid under the face, and befriended 
The womanly need, that so eagerly cried 
In a speechless appeal to be soul-satisfied, 
In my thought. When the lecture had come to an end, 
And the people were slowly departing, her friend 
Major Mellen presented me to her. 

" I 've mentioned 
The major, perhaps ? He's a clever-intentioned, 
Uncertain, erratic, and cynical man, 
Who will ridicule always whatever he can ; 
Who is recreant, either in word or in fact, 
To all truth ; who can never make up what he lacked 
As a boy, when I knew him at first, — a true sense 
Of respect for things holy ; who sees a pretence 
In all earnestness, looks for deceit or a lie 
In all candor, and laughs, with a tear in his eye, 



38 GEBALDINE. 

At all sentiment sober ; a man whom I shrink 
From at times, yet who often compels me to think 
That I like him, so shrewd are his comments, so keen 
Is the wit that he flashes. I never have seen 
Any human enigma more puzzling than he, 
And I'm glad you don't know him, my dear. 

" Mrs. Lee 
Is a woman of wit and of rare repartee, 
With a lightness of speech that quite often belies 
The suggestion of sorrow that lurks in her eyes. 
They insisted that I should go with them to supper 
(She lives, let me say, in the style of the Upper 
Ten Thousand, who dine very late, and sit down 
To their tea at a time when the rest of the town 
Is asleep) : I accepted, in hopes that a walk 
In the chilly night air, and the major's bright talk 
For an hour afterward, would beguile me to sleep. 
And the major was witty and droll, if not deep, 
Making odd little turns of the points of my speech, 
And applying them oddly and keenly, till each 
Of us laughed to the echo. 

" The widow laughs well 
(She 's a widow, I know, though I could n't quite tell 
How I know it) ; has read the best authors in prose 
And in poetry, current and classic, and knows 
When to quote them and how, which is rather uncommon, 
I 'm tempted to say, nowadays, in a woman. 

" A right merry season we had at the table : 
I know 'twould amuse you in turn, were I able 
To write out the many bright things that were said. 
But all wit loses sparkle and glow when it 's read, 
And I 'm not very good, I confess, at repeating 
The many bon-mots that I hear at a meeting 



GEBALDINE. 



39 



, ' .f . .* ' ~ . ,h . 




g^ . ; •• 



Like this, of a few who have sharpened their wits 
By long practice. 

" I fancy the god of mirth sits 
With his soul in the shadow, just ready to weep ; 
For so many I know, who in company keep 
The whole roomful a-roar, are yet closest akin 
To the pathos of being, and oft enter in 
To the innermost temple of sorrow, where tears 
Never gather and fall, and no grief of the years 
Ever voices itself to the world. The great woe 
Of a life (or I sometimes have reasoned it so) 
May not be a great loss that it ever has known, 
But a very great want that has silentlv grown 
From an undefined need to the mastering strength 
Of a hunger unfed, and that sways one at length 
With an absolute will, — not a grief to be told 



40 GERALDINE. 

To a friend with a sigh, but to have and to hold 
All unshared to the end. 

" But enough of my fancies. 
You '11 come to believe that a hidden romance is 
Beneath this new face I have met, if suggestion 
Of sorrow be followed up thus. Beyond question 
The woman has suffered, — a quite common case, 
Very likely, though hers is an uncommon face ; 
And it may be her life has known nothing of lack 
But in losing. I 've promised to call, going back 
From the West, and may more of her history learn. 

" It is far in the night, and to sleep I must turn, 
For my eyelids are heavy at last. May my dreams 
Be of you and your love ! Amid much that but seems 
What it is not, I know that my darling is true 
As the truth I believe and proclaim ; and to you 
The unrest of my heart ever turns for content : 
So be tender and true to 

" Your 

"Percival Trent." 




IV. 




he called, as he promised, again and again ; 
And she met him with grace very charming. 

Few men 
Ever failed to be won by the winning re- 
pose 
Of her manner, to strong admiration. The 
close 
Of each call came too soon. He would gladly have stayed 
Even longer, although it is true he delayed 
His departure to etiquette's limits extreme. 
He had met many women ; had thought one supreme 
O'er them all for her beauty, her sweetness, and grace : 
But a charm quite elusive shone out of this face 
That so puzzled his reading ; a winsomeness new 
In its every expression his interest drew ; 
And the touch of her hand as she bade him adieu 
Was magnetic. 

Their talk was of places and books 
At the first. He had been in some half-hidden nooks 
Of the world, and, describing their beauties, would glow 
With their memories rare. 'T was his fortune to know 
Men and women who write what the rest of us read ; 
And a word about books would so easily lead 
To some personal gossip, they finally fell 
Into serious thought as to what the books tell 



42 



GERALDINE. 




Of the life and the love of their authors. 

"I doubt 
If women or men ever write much without 
Weaving in their own story," she said. "I believe 
In reality rather than fiction. Deceive 
As some may the great public, who readily yield 
To fictitious profession, there must be concealed 
In each novel or poem that touches the heart, 
And takes hold of the sympathies strongest, a part 
Of the writer's own being and doing." 

" I hold 
To another opinion. The poet is bold 
In his fancy; the novelist free in the flight 
Of imaginings many," he answered with quite 



GERALDINE. 43 

An emphatic expression, yet speaking as one 

Who was weighing his words. "And, when you have begun 

To determine where poet and novelist blend 

With the persons they picture, there 's never an end 

To the questions arising ; for either may be 

As prolific in different pictures as he 

Who is painting the crowd as they come. So diverse 

Are the characters shown, that it couldn't be worse — 

As a failure, I mean — if the painter should try 

To be each of the persons he 's painted. And why 

Should we single out one of the many portrayed, 

And declare that this one of the many is made 

Of the poet 's own life, or the novelist's ? " 

"Now 
You have taken to argument, I must allow 
That my view appears weak," she returned with a laugh. 
" But a woman ought never to argue ; for half 
That she knows is beyond demonstration. She feels 
It to be, and so knows it to be ; and conceals 
Or confesses her meagre resources for knowing, 
As moved by her whim. Yet there may be a showing 
Of reason in what I have felt to be so. 
Out of nothing no thing has been made, as we know, 
That is good. Can a poet produce out of nought 
What is living and real ? " 

She paused. 

"But his thought 
Is a something," he said, " and from this he produces 
The beings that live and that love. In the uses 
Of forms he is led to make copy of men 
And of women he sees round about him ; but when 
He breathes into them soul, it is never the soul 
Of another, not even his own." 

" Then the whole 



44 GERALDINE. 

Of his work is from fancy alone ? If he write 

With a heartache that throbs into words, 't is the flight 

Of his fancy-led thought, not a passionate cry 

Out of sorrow he feels ? And the many who sigh 

As they read him are wasteful of sympathy ? " 

Less 
Of doubt did her words than her manner express, 
And he felt that she studied him, striving to learn 
Rather more than his answers might yield, in return 
For her questions. 

" Perhaps I should hardly declare 
What you say to be true altogether. A share 
Of the woe of the world may creep into its verse 
Or its prose ; but I doubt if a man will rehearse 
Any grief of his own while a grief it remains. 
He may journey beyond it, may think of its pains 
As a thing of the past, and may write of it then 
With a sort of contempt for its sacredness. When 
It is part of to-day, he will shut it away 
From the gaze of the crowd. I admit that he may 
Seem to write of what is in the present, that urges 
The blood in his heart to impetuous surges : 
The heart may be throbbing, perchance, while he writes 
Wiat your sympathy moves, your emotion excites, 
But from sympathy just like your own. He may feel, 
When he writes with a heartache he does not conceal, 
To the full the deep sorrow he breathes ; but be sure 
'T is a grief that is fleeting, that will not endure, 
That is born of his fancy, — the same as your own 
While you read. And why not? Is the reader alone 
To be moved by the syllables tender, the sobs 
Welling up ? I am certain the writer's heart throbs 
Over sorrows of fancy as if they were true 
And intense as the bitterest life ever knew." 



GEBALBINE. 45 

" And how, then, may it be with his longings ? Are these 

But the sigh of a moment, the breath of a breeze 

Of desire blowing over him ? Nothing he holds 

Until it into beauty of being unfolds, 

And makes glad some great need of his heart ? " 

Then he smiled. 

" Are you striving with logical art 
Thus to prove me all wrong ? It is in my beliefs 
That the sorrow of sorrows, the grief of all griefs, 
Is the sorrow, the grief, of a mastering need. 
Yet a poet may syllable this ; and indeed 
I 've no doubt that the longings of poets are real 
As things that they long for are vague and ideal. 
'T is here that they reach after beauty and light 
Far beyond and above all that gladdens their sight 
In the present ; and thus they uplift the whole race 
With their longing and hoping and striving." 

His face 
Growing earnest, she waited expectant. 

"To long 
For some good that we have not is noble. The song 
That incites to proud doing was penned with some hill 
Of endeavor uprising before ; and the will . 9 

To win glory and crowning sprang out of desire : 
They only grow helpful and strong who aspire. 
There is only one road to the mountains of bliss, 
And it leads from the levels of longing." 

" But this 
Is a general view you are taking," she said, 
Interrupting him here with a smile. " I have read 
Of some longings more special : their voice, like a call 
From a hungering soul, on my heart seemed to fall, 
And to wake a response. It was want crying out 



46 GEBALDINE. 

To the plenty of life to be filled." 

" Beyond doubt 
You have heard such a cry. Every soul not ascetic 
Does hear it. The want of the world, so pathetic, 
So broad, comprehends and embraces all needs, 
Individual, hidden, and silent. The greeds 
Of the world are past naming ; the hunger and thirst 
By which men are so often and sorely accursed 
Are as legion : yet some one shall cry of his lack, 
And at once the sad voices come echoing back, 
As if truly this one had thus spoken for each, 
When he wants what perchance may abound within reach 
Of the rest, and they think it is nought." 

" But there may 
Be a want that is common to many. The sway 
Of one mastering need, as you term it, may be 
As supreme within you as it is within me : 
It may hold just as firmly all sensitive souls. 
We walk different paths ; but the very same goals 
Are to gladden us all by and by." 

" But no twain 
Are exactly alike in their longing. The pain 
Of a wearing unrest in each heart is a thing 
By itself, as by self to be borne. One may sing 
A glad paean of praise that the many outring 
In re-echoing notes ; but the song they are ringing 
Had something his own, while his gladness was singing, 
It lacks from the lips of another. 

" I stand 
By the oneness of each in himself. As the hand 
That I hold to the world is my own, though it bear 
A good gift of which all may claim portion and share ; 
So the poet may bring of his riches to such 
As are needy, and each may be richer by much, 



GEBALBINE. 47 

In the taking of what was his right, as it seems, 
Out of common bestowal. But longings and dreams 
That embody the gift are the poet's alone : 
They are harvest, perhaps, of some seed he has sown 
In the past. And no life may be like his so near 
As to garner the same from its sowing." 

" I fear 
You are thinking too broadly to touch the one thought 
I have had, and to answer it now. I have sought 
To be sure of too much," she replied. " Let it go 
Till I 've pondered it further. You certainly know 
Of my right as a woman to have the last word. 
What you say may be true : if it be, I have erred 
In conceding to poets the commoner woes 
That afflict and make sad. I am bound to suppose 
That you know of the facts." And he saw she had tired 
Of their soberer talk, and so simply desired 
By mild badinage now to glide off from the theme. 

He but laughed, and made merry. 

" To-night, if I dream 
Of some hunger of heart," he remarked, as he said 
His adieu, " I shall know an invisible thread 
From the heart of another my hungering thrills ; 
That my want is the twin of your own ; that our wills 
Are akin, and our needs ? " 

He was reading her eyes 
As he, bantering, questioned her thus for replies 
That her tongue might not syllable. Xothing outshone 
From their depths that gave answer complete. 

"I have known 
What it is to be hungry of soul," she replied, 
Speaking gravely again : " so have you, and, beside 
Us, a host of the men and the women who greet 



48 GERALDINE. 

The gay world with a smile. It is easy to cheat 
The blind mass into thinking we 're glad and content. 
It is hard to walk on with what fate may have sent 
For your company, — hunger and doubt and unrest, — 
And yet keep the heart steady that beats in your breast ; 
It is hard to feel lonesome for love that is kind 
To the uttermost, tender and trustful, and blind 
To your ugliness, quick to discover your need, 
And a spendthrift in giving itself." 

"May I plead 
For one boon?" said he eagerly: "this, — be my friend, 
As I 'd like to be yours. Let me make some amend, 
If I may, for the lack that you feel now and then, 
And regret. I '11 be frank : there is much that some men 
Could bestow that I have not ; the all I can give 
Is but little, — a friendship that pledges to live 
While you care for it, sympathy certain and strong, 
And perchance here and there the glad note of a song 
In your life as you find the way weary and sore. 
I would give nothing less : I can give nothing more." 

" It is much," she responded, " far more than you think. 

When a wayfarer thirsty is given to drink 

From a brook where the many may come and be filled, 

He is glad as if never another were thrilled 

By its current of blessing." 

She held out her hand, 
And the pressure he gave it returned. 

" Understand, 
We are friends while you wish it. Good-night." 

For what came 
In the track of all this they were hardly to blame. 
There 's a logic in life that is stubborn as fate : 
We must learn it, each one, though our study be late. 




HAT Geraldine Hope was indeed a 

coquette, 
Not a few were persuaded who met her, 

and vet 
Without reason sufficient. Her smile, 

it is true, 

Was bewitching, and freely bestowed. Then she knew 
How to charm in those delicate ways that suggest 
A particular feeling of interest. Pressed 
For some cause for their thought as concerning her, these 
Who esteemed her the least were at fault. By degrees 
As they knew her the better, they came to see under 
The manner so winning at times, and to wonder 
At womanly graces disclosed, at the will 
To be helpful and brave ; and they wondered until 
They were champions grown of her truth. 

She had been 
Greatly flattered and praised ; and to please, and to win 
Admiration, was easy. She studied no arts, 
But was just her own natural self. If the hearts 
Of men yielded her homage unsought, none could say 
That she won it to scorn, or that he was the prey 
Of deceit and delusion. No lover was pained 
By the loss of a love that he never had gained 
But in idle profession. 

4 



50 GEBALDINE. 

The woman's soul in her 
Was noble and true. To be won, he must win her 
With truth and nobility equal, who brought 
Her his heart and his life, and her heart and life sought. 
And, beside, she must feel that he stood just above 
Her in being and doing, whose life and whose love 
Could be worthful and sweet, and in nothing below. 
So she waited in faith, not unwilling to go 
Through the years quite alone, if instead she must lean 
On an arm that was lower. 

And thus Geraldine 
By her suitors abundant had failed to be won, 
Until Percival Trent, who had lately begun 
To be known of the world, came to know her, and hold 
Her supreme among women. His loving controlled 
Her as never another's had done. He was king 
Among men, in her sight, from the first ; and the ring 
That he gave her at last she would wear to the end, 
Never doubting. 

If love could forever but lend 
To its object the glow of perfection, how sure 
Would all pledges of constancy be to endure ! 
" Love is blind," men have said ; but they gravely mistake 
Who believe so. Alas that it is not! The ache 
That is born of regret would not vex and make sad, 
If true love could not see ; and a world would be glad 
If no loving looked through the too common disguise 
Of the thing winning love, and with grief-welling eyes 
Saw the faults that lie under. We sorrow to find 
That our friends are unworthy ; and love is unkind 
For revealing the fact, with its vision so clear, 
That each life has its blemishes. Love may appear 
As unseeing as marble, yet quiver with pain 
From beholding so much; and the bitterest bane 



GERALDIXR 



51 



Of the years will be found, as we learn what they teach, 
In the knowledge that love gave a glamour to each ; 
That the beauty we saw could not always abide, 
Nor the veil of our faith all deformity hide. 



Had she trusted too much in 

this man who so held 
All her life in his hand ? who 

so surely compelled 
Her to trust him and love him ? 

Not hers was the question: 
No doubt troubled her, nor the 

faintest suggestion 
Of doubt. He was hers ; she 

was his. Before God 
They were wedded forever. Their 

way might be broad 
In the future, or narrow : it 

could not prevent 
Them from walking together in happy content 
To the gate that leads out of this being. Beyond 
There should dawn an eternity, never less fond 
In its faith and its love ; and the bliss of her dream 
Should be endless at last where all love is supreme. 




WM 



So she thought. To his questioning letter she made 
An unquestioning answer : — 

" Dear heart, I 'm afraid 
You are working too hard, and need rest. By and by 
You will smile at the dread you have named, as do I. 
There is nothing to fear in a love that is strong 
And content as is ours. If the time should be long 
Ere I see you again, I should never once doubt ; 
If long years should roll by us uncertain, without 



52 GERALDINE. 

Bringing word of remembrance from you, I should know- 
There were reason for silence, and patiently go 
Up and down at my duties, in trust. If a living, 
Abiding affection is formed, the up-giving 
Is perfect, of life and of faith : there can be 
Neither question nor fear. As for you and for me, 
We rely on a love that is higher by much 
Than our own to mould ours, and to keep it. The touch 
Of this love so divine adds a quality rare 
To our own ; makes it pure beyond any compare 
With the commoner loves ; makes it lasting and sweet 
And immortal. 

" I think there can be no defeat 
For a love that is guarded by trust. It withstands 
Every effort of cruel and violent hands 
To dethrone it ; it rules with a wonderful might, 
Born of weakness and yielding ; it strives for no right 
But the right to bestow of its largess ; it speaks 
With an eloquent tongue, in a silence that seeks . 
But to hear the dear words of bestowal ; it waits 
For the gladness of time that its faith antedates, 
And is glad in its waiting ; it patiently bears 
Every strain of the years, all the grief and the cares 
They may bring ; it is faithful and true to the end : 
And we know such a love, I am certain, my friend. 

" As for duty, that 's God speaking plainly to each 
Of his work in the world ; and the wider the reach 
Of your effort, the more you are doing for men, 
Then the sweeter will be your reward. So what, then, 
Does it matter concerning a duty to come ? 
Every morrow grows out of to-day ; and the sum 
Of the future is made from the present. Whatever 
The morrow may bring will depend on endeavor 



GERALDINE. 



53 



Put forth by us now. If to-day we are strong 
In the right, need we fear that a possible wrong 
In the future will find us unwilling and weak ? 

" Let the way that we journey be rugged and bleak 
By and by : we may smile as we wander to-day 
Where the roses are blowing, and fancy the way 
Is forever to lead amid beauty and bloom. 




If we know that the sunshine 

will vanish in gloom, 
Let 's be glad till the shadows 
are on us. 

" No man 
And no woman of right should the coming time scan 
With foreboding. The present is ours ; and the rest — 
That is God's. He will care for his own as is best ; 
And our watching is worthless, our dread is in vain. 
Are we moulded to suffer ? The possible pain 
Will not easier seem for expecting it. Waits 
Any wretchedness for us ? The hardest of fates 
May be sweetened by love and a song of good cheer, 



54 GERALDINE. 

Like a psalm in the night. 

" There is nothing so clear 
To me ever, dear heart, as that strength will be lent, 
If we ask it, to bear what the Lord shall have sent ; 
And that every hard duty will find us with strength 
To attempt, and indeed overcome it, at length, 
If we cling to the Giver of strength, nor let go 
When the weakest we feel. For I 'm certain, I know, 
That the weakest may hold to God's hand with a grip 
That is ever unyielding, if only the lip 
Can say, ' Help me, Father ! ' so quickly he hears, 
And so soon is he touched by our need and our tears/' 

Such a faith is a treasure of blessing : it yields 
The sweet waters of peace in the barrenest fields. 
She will need all the help that it offers to cope 
With the want of her morrow — poor Geraldine Hope! 




VI. 




AJOR MELLEN had business in River- 
met ; leisure, 
When business was done, to bethink 

him of pleasure. 
He called upon Geraldine Hope, — 

" Just to show 
That I have not forgotten that sum- 
mer, you know, 
When we met at the Hills," he remarked. 

With a trifle 
Of speech she replied, as if willing to stifle 
His thought of the past. 

" It is ages since then," 
He resumed. " I have waited for fate once again 
To be kind, but in vain — until now." 

" You believe, 
Then, in fate ? " she abruptly inquired. 

" Yes, I grieve 
To admit that I do," was the answer, a touch 
Of distrust in his manner ; " that is, quite as much 
As I 'm prone to believe in things ever. They say 
I 'm a heretic born, and have wandered away 
From all faith in the good and the true. It 's a libel 
Of course." And he laughed. " I 've a beautiful Bible 
I read every day — when the weather is fine. 
(You may open your eyes at this statement of mine 



56 GEBALBINE. 

In mute wonder.) The book is as broad as the sky, 
And as old as the world. If a poet, I 'd try 
To repeat the sweet promises in it, to tell 
What it says to me often, so wondrously well 
That I listen enrapt ; but I have n't the gift 
Of expression. There's Trent — " 

At this mention the swift- 
Coursing blood from her heart, leaping into her cheek, 
Told him more than all words that her loving might speak ; 
But he seemed not to heed the quick witness. 

" His tongue 
Or his pen, for the sweetest of songs ever sung, 
Could find words in my Bible, I 'm certain. The book 
Is the richest I know ; and who wishes can look 
At it even as I do, with longing to learn 
All its lessons and secrets. I turn and return 
To its pages each summer with pleasure intense." 

They were often beset with perplexing suspense 
Of his meaning and purpose, who listened to him ; 
And she heard him run on, with a consciousness dim 
That he might have a motive in speaking, not quite 
To be seen at the outset. 

" That week of delight 
In the mountains, when fate was so winningly kind 
As to show me your face, I was never less blind 
To the beauties the Bible of Nature revealed, 
And I revelled in loveliness. Forest and field 
Had a charm for me new. Every mountain-top shone 
With a marvellous glory. I think, had I known 
'T was the very last week of my life, I 'd have cared 
Not at all. I am seldom ecstatic ; I 've fared 
At the best and the poorest so often, I hold 
By philosophy cool, as a rule ; but the gold 



GEBALDINE. 57 

Of that summer week's gilding is bright even yet: 
I must live through a lingering age to forget 
All the glamour and glow of those days that went past 
Like a dream of content." 

" Was that summer the last 
That you saw of the Hills ? " 

She was puzzled to tell 
What to think of his words and his manner. So well 
She remembered his cynical smile and his sneer, 
Half-disguised, at all sentiment tender, and dear 
To the sensitive heart, she could hardly accept 
What he uttered as earnest. 

" I could not have kept 
My first love for the Hills, — for those Hills, — had I been 
There again. The one visit was all. It 's a sin 
To defraud any pleasure, of sight or of deed, 
By repeating it. One of the rules that I heed 
Is to go only once to a place, if I go 
For mere pleasure alone ; and, remembering so 
But the freshness and zest of my pleasure most keen, 
There is nothing to me that is common, I mean, 
In the matter of scenic delight." 

'■' You forget 
That last evening we waited to see the sun set 
On the top of Mount Vision," she said in reply. 
" You were silent a while ; but the glow of the sky 
Was reflected, I thought, in the glow of your face. 
You had seen the same picture ; the very same grace 
Of superlative beauty in color and tone 
Had beguiled you again and again — " 

" But it shone 
In a different light ; it was not the same view ; 
It had different tints, and a different hue 
Over all from the sunsets we commonly see. 



58 



GEBALDINE. 




And, moreover, two sunsets are never to me 

Just alike. The}' are even diverse as the features 

Of men in expression. The creeds of the preachers 

Can vary no more. But your lakes and your hills, 

Your meadows and mountains, your rivers and rills, 

Are the same to the end of the chapter : they yield 

Nothing fresh for renewed admiration; revealed 

Is the sum of their beauty at first to your eyes : 

They are changeless, in short. But the sea and the skies, — 

These are changeful as man, and, because of their change, 

As bewitching as woman." 

" Such talk would seem strange 
From another than you, Major Mellen, indeed. 
I am puzzled by logic that lightly can lead 



GEBALDINE. 59 

To conclusion like yours. You would find your delight 
In the face of a stranger; and even the sight 
Of a friend would be wearisome, just in degree 
As the friend were familiar to you." 

" It might be 
As you say," he responded, " if 't were not the fact, 
As I 've hinted, that faces do change ; and an act, 
Or a thought, or a hope, or a feeling, may bring 
A new face in the old. But your bird there may sing 
A new song, though he change not a feather; and thus 
May our friend, though he change not the smile he gives us, 
Be as changeful in words as the sky is in looks, 
Have as varying moods as the sea, or the books 
Of the poets." 

" Perhaps," — and she paused, as if shrinking 
From saying too much, — " it may be we are thinking 
Diversely. I never am positive whether 
Your words and your thoughts run exactly together. 
You like to combat and discuss, and draw out 
The beliefs and the fancies of others. I doubt 
If you fully accept all you freely imply. 
Now, to me, every mountain takes glow from the sky 
That it kisses, or sombreness wears like a frown 
When the mists and the shadows fall heavily down; 
Every meadow lights up by the sun, as a face 
Might be glorified, seen in some radiant place ; 
Every lake but reflects what the sky above shows, — 
Either sunlight or shadow; it sparkles and glows, 
Or is angry from touch of the winds, or is still 
As the spring that begets yonder musical rill 
In its home in the wild. I see changes in all 
That are beautiful. None of these ever can pall 
On my vision." 

He often had seen her as now, 



60 GEBALDINE. 




With the pink of her cheek and the white of her brow 

Yet the stronger in contrast, from feeling that urged 

The quick blood through her veins till it rippled and surged 

In her face. He had often beguiled her to think 

In expression as earnest, that thus he might drink 

Of her glowing delight in the lovely and true : 

'T was a pleasure surprising, peculiar, and new, 

Thus to put her in eager defence of her thought, 

Till her beauty, with something mysterious fraught, 

Had a charm that was rare. He had wearied of much 

That men fancy is pleasant ; but here was a touch 

Of delight that he could not explain. He could smile 

At the commoner pleasures with which men beguile 

The dull days. But some influence hidden, unguessed, 

Was upon him, and gave to each moment a zest 

That was fresh. and unfailing, as, scanning her face, 

He could study her feeling and thought, and could trace 

Every turn of her fancy, each questioning doubt. 

He had keen intuition, and saw much without 

Any effort at seeing ; was quick to divine 

Every meaning that lurked in a glance or a sign ; 



GEEALDINK 61 

And made use of his sceptical questions and sneers 
To uncover the souls of his friends. 

" It appears 
To me certain you 've read in my Bible," he said, 
With a laugh not too mocking, " although you have read 
With a thought of your own running on with the theme 
Of the text. You can linger and listen and dream 
In the woods and the fields like a poet, — or, yes, 
Like a man of the Avorlcl who forever finds less 
In the world to his fancy, except it be far 
From the din — and the dinners. You certainly are 
Of the order of poets yourself, to behold 
Such a glow of the new in a shade of the old. 
You should marry a poet, Miss Hope, who could see 
With such eyes as your own — if there happen to be 
Any man of so wealthy endowment." 

She blushed 
At the words and the look, and unconsciously crushed 
A wild rose she had held in her hand. Had he heard 
What one poet was to her ? 

" It never occurred 
To me, major," she said, " that the ultimate mission 
A poet may know is to bring the fruition 
Of life to one woman he honors with marriage. 
I may not be right, — and I would not disparage 
The poets, I 'm certain, — but poets, as poets, 
Belong, I believe, to all women. I know it 's 
A fact that they marry ; but is n't it fact 
That they wed not as poets ? that women attract 
Not the poet, but only a man among men ? " 

He was puzzled, in turn, for a moment, and then, 
Comprehending that she was but parrying, laughed, 
And let fly, as he fancied, a Parthian shaft. 



62 GEBALDINE. 

" No, they dorft wed as poets : connubial ties 

Would be idle to bind all the passion that lies 

In the heart of a poet. The man may be bound ; 

But the poet is free, and wherever is found 

Any blossoming sweet he may gather it in. 

They are lucky — these poets : they 've only to win 

As the men, like us all, and have freedom accorded 

To woo and to win, then, as poets, rewarded 

By beauty and love in most bountiful measure. 

A poet, it seems, has an infinite leisure 

For love, and capacity equal. There 's Trent, 

Whom I 've named : the good fellow was meant 

For a knight in heroic and chivalrous times 

Quite as much as a minstrel to maunder his rhymes. 

He 's the soul of a poet, as all will confess 

Who have heard him and read him ; likewise (and not less) 

Is the liberal heart of the poet his own. 

We were intimate friends years ago ; but I Ve known 

Very little about him since then, till of late. 

As a boy in his teens, he 'd a singular fate 

For sporadic affection : before he was twenty 

He 'd loves half a dozen ; it 's probable plenty 

Have gladdened him since. It was thought he would wed 

A young lady in Somers ; and I have heard said 

He would marry some one in this town." 

" Did you hear 
Who the young lady was?" she inquired with a queer 
Little tremor of voice. 

" Now I really forgot 
To inquire," he replied ; " but the fact matters not. 
He 's a passion much later than that, I am sure, 
And it may prove more difficult even to cure. 
I have known more than one to meet Isabel Lee 
To his lasting regret. She 's a marvel to me 



GEBALDINE. 63 

(And a cousin, which means that I know her quite well) 

For her mastery over the men. I could tell, 

When I introduced Trent, what would follow. She knew 

How to rouse his whole interest in her. She drew 

Him again and again, and will draw him, despite 

Any previous fancy, until her delight 

In his presence and passion is over. The hurt 

Will not kill him." 

"This woman is, then, but — a — flirt," 
She remarked, hesitating, to cover the pause 
When he stopped. 

" I may say she has given some cause 
To be called so," he answered, a cynical ring 
In his voice ; " but she may not intend anything 
That is certain to breed very positive harm. 
She believes in the right of each woman to charm 
As she can. She regards it the duty of each 
To do discipline-work on all hearts within reach. 
She 's a woman of women, in short, with a will 
To be wooed for the wooing, not won ; to instil 
As much love as she may in the hearts of mankind, 
Which is quite evangelical truly. We find 
That the preachers preach love, of a sort ; and the best 
Should be fruiting itself in humanity's breast, 
If occasion there be for the poorest." 

He talked 
In a tone that was usual with him, and mocked 
All the meaning his cynical words might have held : 
And she listened with curious feelings, compelled 
To seem anxious as only a woman who heard 
Such allusion to one of her sex as but stirred 
Her own pity indignant. Her face was aflame, 
And she dared not to venture on speaking his name 
Who was more to her even than life. 



64 GERALDINE. 

" It 's a shame," 
She made answer, " for women to be as you say. 
And you libel us all when you speak in that way, 
As if women were all mere coquettes. There are more 
Who give love than are loved ; and, if all men but bore 
The respect that they ought for all women, the sex 
Would be nobler and better. You talk but to vex 
Me to earnest defence of my kind : you don't mean 
What you utter." 

He smiled, the same smile she had seen 
On his face in the past, — half a sneer, half assent 
To a fact he would gladly refute. 

" I 'm content 
Not to argue the question," he answered, "with 'one 
Who might point to herself, ere we well had begun, 
As a proof for all women. I gladly cry quits 
At the outset. I never could measure my wits 
With a woman's in argument. Even to try, 
In this instance, would lose me my train : so good-by." 
And he rose, and extended his hand. 

" Must you go ? " 
She replied ; not too eager, he fancied. " I know 
The young woman — you heard about — here, whom your 

friend 
Was to marry," she went on to say, " and will lend 
Her my ears for the news you have brought, should it seem 
To be worth any while." 

And like one in a dream 
She went up to her room, and sat down with her grief 
Over-brooding and weighing upon her. Belief 
In the story to which she had listened was first 
A necessity. All it implied, and the worst, 
She accepted, and tortured herself into pain 
Of the keenest. When day came again, she had lain 



GERALDINE. 



65 



On a bed of unrest a long night through ; her throbbing 
Heart weary and tempted, and sore with its sobbing ;• 
For the woman within her was quick to take up 
Any bitterness offered, and drink till the cup 
Had been drained to its dregs, if 

Then some gladness shone in : 
She was wicked to yield to her doubt; it was sin 
Thus to sorrow and grieve ; if some love she had lost, 




There was God, — he would profit her, even at cost 

That was dear. So she reasoned at length ; and she 

prayed 
With a tender upgiving that must have delayed 
More than one of God's angels to listen and hear. 

5 



66 ' GERALDINE. 

And at last, through the clouds, came a radiance clear, 
Till she saw mid her tears the glad rainbow of trust. 

When believing came back, — as to some hearts it must, 
Though it leave for a little, — she felt she had done 
A great wrong to her love and to God ; and, as one 
Who has grievously sinned, she repented in tears 
Of her sin, till they blinded her doubts and her fears, 
And made way for the sunshine that came. 

And how sweet 
Is the sunlight that falls on our wandering feet, 
When the morning dawns clear after night of distress 
And we look on a land that our hope may possess 
By and by ! Blessed morrow to gladden us all, 
If to-day not a shadow of sunset could fall ! 




' ' ' i' ; - i u ' 



VII. 




HEX Geraldine Hope met her lover 

again, 
She was tenderer even than common. 

To men 
Of his mould it is easy for women 

to yield 
Their caresses and trust. She had 

always revealed 
Her whole soul to him freely ; and now she expressed 
With sweet emphasis, sweeter than any possessed 
In articulate language of love, how she rested 
Herself in his heart. It was not that she tested 
His love and his faith : she was certain of these ; 
She had walked from her wilderness dark on her knees. 
It was not that she thought to make certain her strength 
Over him, as of old ; it might happen at length 
That she seem to him weaker than late she had been 
In the sight of herself. It was not that she win 
A new fervor of love. It was simply that he 
Had been wronged in her thought and belief ; and so she 
Made amends as she could. 

There are wives who have doubted 
The faith of their husbands for less, and have shouted 
Their doubts to the world, as if virtue must claim 
Its reward on the house-tops, or ally with shame ; 
But this woman, as wedded by love, in the eyes 



68 GEBALDINE. 

Of the angels, she knew, as her sister that sighs 
Over vows, and a bridal ring empty of bliss, 
Could seal close into silence her pain with a kiss, 
And remember it only to smile at. She would not 
So much as make question to him; and she could not 
Again feel a question concerning his love, 
She was trustingly sure. And henceforth, far above 
Every statement of cynical doubt, she would bear 
Her belief in his honor and truth. He should share 
The full trust that she gave to her God. 

You may know 
How she loved, to stand fast and unfaltering so ; 
You may guess what her love must have meant to her life, 
When she fought out alone such a wearying strife 
With distrust, and then put it all back in the past, 
That no shadow of conscious unfaith might be cast 
On their future. 

Had Percival Trent at this time 
Felt a doubt of his love in return, some sublime 
And unselfish intent must have moved him to hold 
It in check. He was tenderer, too, than of old. 
He looked down in her eyes with his own brimming over 
With truth, and was glad. 

" I 've so long been a rover," 
He said to her soon, "that I hunger for home 
Of my own. Only vagabonds always can roam 
Up and down, as a decade or more I have done, 
Without wearying of it. There's much to be won 
In the broad world of being I've studied so long; 
But I'd rather be singing some ingleside song 
For your heart to be happy in hearing alone, 
Than to win all the praises of men I have known. 
I've another long season of labor ahead, 
That will amply provide me with means to buy bread 



GERALDINE. 



69 



For us both afterward. You'll be ready to sit 
And preside for us two at the breaking of it ? " 
She could be very merry indeed, if she chose, 
And the spirit was on her just now. 

" I suppose 
We may have something more," she remarked with a laugh, 
" Than you 've mentioned ? For me, I must say, even half 




& 



U4I , ■«-•«£<,■; 

m 9 



t'n3 



wTl 










Of a loaf would not answer. A little of meat 
And potatoes might make our provision complete." 



" It is meet we shall be at our own little board 

By and by," he rejoined, " when my slow-growing hoard 



70 GERALDINE. 

Is increased to the proper proportions. We '11 live 
On the peaches and cream of existence, and give 
Of- the commoner good to who wants it." 

She smiled 
At his liberal purpose. She seemed like a child 
In her simple acceptance of pleasures to be, 
And she listened with joy that was winsome to see 
As he glowingly pictured the happy content 
Of some morrow to come. 

Surely Percival Trent 
Was a fortunate man. W T ith his mood at its best. 
He was glad as are they in the Valley of Rest 
Who have never a sorrow, and never are sad ; 
He could stand on the Mountains of Beulah, as glad 
As if never he groped in the shadows below, 
And the glories of being as truly could know 
On their heights as if down in the depth there were none 
Of its midnight and gloom when the gladness was done. 
Yes, a fortunate man, but more fortunate here, 
On this day of delight, than in many a year, 
If forever, he might be again ; for he stood 
On the edge of his Edom, unknowing. The good 
Of the Uplands of Promise could only be gained 
By a wilderness way that was rugged, and stained 
With the blood of its wandering, wearying souls. 
He must go as they journey who seek for the goals 
That are hardest to gain, with no kindness or care 
For himself, only patient, and willing to bear 
All the pain of the days, all their famishing heat. 
May God help him, if ever the manna sent sweet 
From the generous heaven should fail in his need ! 
God help all who are seeking their Canaan, and lead 
As he can, with his merciful hand of release, 
By and by, to its infinite plenty and peace ! 



GERALDIXE. 



71 



When they parted at last, Geraldine and her lover, 
The angels of hope seemed to heed them, and hover 
About them with whispers of cheer. It was June.; 
And the air, with its murmurous music in tune 
With their sentiments tender, was sweet as a breeze 
From some island of bloom, blowing over the seas 
To a mariner homesick for land. T was a time 
To be wed, and not parted. The year in its prime 
Was a redolent glory ; the thrill of its bliss 
Added ecstasy rare to the thrill of their kiss 
As he said his farewell. 

There are days that are kind 
As a mother to men, showing pathways that wind 
Out and in, like a dream, by some stream of delight, 
Never hinting of aught that they hold to affright; 




Only luring us on, since the way must be trod, 
Over meadows of green with their velvety sod, 
To the steeps, that are harder to climb, far before. 
There are nights so enchanting, they seem to restore 
The original beauty of Eden ; so tender, 



72 



GERALDINE. 



They woo every soul to a willing surrender 
Of feverish longing ; so holy, withal, 
That a broad benediction seems sweetly to fall 
On the world. 

And these followed with magical sheen, 
The rare sunsets aflame the rich mornings between, 
Giving Percival Trent a new relish for life, 
A new spirit and grace for the struggle and strife 
Of the years. For he went for his summer's brief rest 
Down a river of beauty to Isles of the Blest. 




VIII. 




AIR St. Lawrence ! What poet has sung 
of its grace 
As it sleeps in the sun, with its smile- 
dimpled face 
Beaming up to the sky that it mir- 
rors ? What brush 
Has e'er pictured the charm of the 
marvellous hush 
Of its silence, or caught the warm glow of its tints 
As the afternoon wanes, and the even-star glints 
In its beautiful depths ? and what pen shall betray 
The sweet secrets that hide from man's vision away 
In its solitudes wild ? 'T is the river of dreams. 
You may float in your boat on the bloom-bordered streams, 
Where its islands like emeralds matchless are set, 
And forget that you live, and as quickly forget 
That they die in that world you have left ; for the calm 
Of content is within you, the blessing of balm 
Is upon you forever. Mortality sleeps 
While you dream, an immortal : some mistiness creeps 
Like a veil of forgetfulness over your past, 
And it is not. Your day is eternal, to last 
Without darkness, or change, or the shadow of dread. 
Blessed isles where to-day and to-morrow are wed 
In such fulness of bliss ! Blessed river that smiles 
In such beauty and peace by the beautiful isles ! 



74 



GERALDINE. 




He had dreamed for a week at the Islands, content 
Without company, glad of each lonely day spent, 
And shunning the groups that each evening convened 
At the house where he stopped. But one night, as 

leaned 
Looking out of his window, some fair sailors singing 
Far over the water, their sweet echoes ringing 
But faintly across the dim distance, he heard 
A clear voice in the portico under, that stirred 
Him to interest sudden and strong. Could it be 
That he listened aright ? He would walk down and see. 
There was only one woman who had such a tone, 
Among all the women he ever had known ; 
Such a mellow outgushing of melody clear 
As made music of commonplace speech to the ear. 
When he passed to the portico broad, there was none 
To be seen whom he knew ; for the band had begun 
Its accustomed performance within the great room 



he 



GEBALDINE. 75 

Where the gay ones had gathered: outside was the gloom 

Of an evening whose moon was unrisen. The shout 

Of some fishermen smote the soft air, and died out 

Into silence. The song from the opposite shore 

Had been sung to the end. The soft dip of an oar 

In the water so still was the sum of all sound 

From without. Disappointed, he went the whole round 

Of the ample verandas, expectant, but met 

No reward for his searching, and turned with regret 

To the place where the dancers were waiting. 

A bright 
Scene it was that. he saw, — the large room all alight, 
Happy groups here and there gayly chatting and laughing, 
Here and there a coquette her blind followers chaffing, 
Some silent ones gravely observing or dreaming, 
The glitter of fashion and radiance gleaming 
Throughout. It was strange he had willingly stayed 
From such music and glow as here met him. He made 
His way quietly into the room, and sat down 
To look over the faces, — some sunburned and brown 
From the water and wind, and a few that were tinted 
With color so vivid and strong that they hinted 
Of rouge. There were none he had seen, save at table ; 
And out of the tumult, the blare,. and the babel 
The band and the people were making, he caught 
Not the one single tone that his listening ear sought : 
Yet he waited, and listened, and almost forgot 
What he came for, and missed. 'T was his fortunate lot 
To like music so well that it counted for much 
That he wanted ; at times making up, with its touch 
As of magic, the lack and the need. 

By and by, 
When the dancers were weary and still, with a sigli 
He went out, and strolled down to the wharf, where the boats 



76 GERALDINE. 

Lay awaiting the morrow. Some late singer's notes 
Came across to him there from the shadows beyond 
The broad channel, and wooed him to dreams that were 

fond. 
But just over the tree-tops the meek moon was hung, 
Her soft lustre illuming the stream ; and he swung 
A light skiff from its place, and laid grip on the oars. 




He could handle them well. In a moment the shores 
Faded out into dimness ; the mammoth hotel 
Was a glittering spot in the night ; and he fell 
Into musing profound. 

From his boat far away 
To the slow-sailing moon, on the waters there lay 
A broad pathway of gold, for his fancy to take, 



GERALDINE. 



77 



And go up to the region of dawn, and there make 

A new morning ideal. The wash of the waves 

On the boatsides was like the low-murmuring staves 

Of a Mendelssohn's Song without Words, and inclined 

Him to utter forgetfulness. Patient, and blind 

To the sins of the world, the pale stars shone above him ; 

The balmy night-breezes seemed shyly to love him, 

And kiss him with clinging, affectionate grace ; 

And unmindful of time^ and unheeding of space, 

He was borne down the current. Some strains of a song 

Floated over him, echoing faintly along 

On the silence ; but heard (if at all they were heard), 

As you hear the loud carolling call of your bird, 

Without heeding. His soul had companionless gone 

To the realm of the silent, the land of the dawn. 




So he mused and he dreamed ; but a-sudden his dreams 
Were all shattered and sunk by the shivering screams 
Of a little steam-yacht that was running him down 
In the stillness and dark. 

" He will certainly drown ! " 



78 GEBALDINE. 

Said a voice in affright, as the vessel's light bow, 
Deftly cutting the deep, slid along on the prow 
Of his boat, and upset it. Dismay seized on all 
In the yacht, and a common and terrified call 
Woke the echoes around. 

" Ship ahoy ! " said the man 
From his bath in the night. " Lend a line, if you can, 
And I '11 right up my boat, and make fast for a tow." 

As he swam to his craft that had floated below, 
He recalled the one voice that had spoken at first, 
And was certain a friend must be near. At the worst, 
He could count on a cold for his droll escapade : 
There was nothing of danger. 

The yachtsmen obeyed 
His request, flung a line, and bore round to him quick. 

" Come on board ! " said the captain. u A very poor trick 

We have played you, whoever you are. Can't be mended 

As I see, however : so don't be offended, 

But give us your hand." And he lifted him up 

To the rail all a-dripping. "A good brimming cup 

Of my brandy will keep you from taking a chill. 

Let me bring you a drink." 

" No, I thank you : I will, 
If an overcoat be at command, accept that ; 
And, if some one had only the twin of my hat 
That I left in the water, I think I might wear it." 

" It had n't a brick in to sink it, I '11 swear it ! " 
Said one of those nearest, outreaching his hand. , 

" Is it you, Major Mellen ? I quite understand 
My disaster at once. Melancholy the place 



GEBALDINE. 



79 



And occurrence, indeed." 

" But you put a good face 
On it, all must admit, Mr. Trent," said the voice 
He had heard. " We must all of us keenly rejoice 
That it ends no more sadly." 

" And you, Mrs. Lee ? 
To bring up in such circle, I'd e'en go to sea, 
As the Wise Men set sail, in a bowl." And he took 




The white hand that she offered him warmly. It shook 
With the faintest of tremors. 

" Pray pardon me, each, 
For the fright I have caused you. I might make a speech 
To the party, without the least possible fear 
Of (for once) being dry." 



80 



GERALDINE. 



" Then pray make it right here 
And just now," said the major. " Don't let it go past. 
Such a chance should be met, for it may be the last. 
I present to you, ladies and gentlemen, one 
Who appears on the scene like a genuine son 
Of the sea, Mr. Percival Trent. You have read 
Him in prose and in verse. It has often been said 
That his measures are liquid, the reason is plain : 
He inclines to the liquid himself." 

So the vein 
Of good humor was worked till they landed, and said 
Their good-nights, and betook them to silence and bed. 




IX. 




T was late the next morning when Per- 
cival Trent 
Took his breakfast. At table a mes- 
sage was sent 
To him, asking that he would make 

one of a number 
To seek the Canadian channel. Sweet 
slumber 
Had rendered but idle all fears of his friends 




82 GEBALBINE. 

With regard to his health, as with humor that lends 
A rare aid to digestion, he sauntered below 
To the landing. The party was ready to go, — 
A gay group whom he hardly had noted last night, 
And for whom he cared little to-day. But the sight 
Of his friend Mrs. Lee gave him pleasure afresh. 

"Is it, then, really you whom I see in the flesh," 

She inquired with a smile, " and not simply your spirit, 

That startled us there from the river?" 

"I fear it 
Was I in the flesh who so frightened you all, 
As this certainly is; though I seem to recall 
As a very vague dream my unpleasant relapse 
Of last evening. I've met with more wretched mishaps, 
But not often. The fault was my own, and the scare 
You all kindly took part in. I'll use better care 
When again I go dreaming alone, Mrs. Lee." 

" But pray tell, Mr. Trent, how you happened to be 
Solitary and far, as you were, and so late. 
I have never supposed you a tempter of fate 
In such manner unsocial." 

" I 'm here quite alone," 
He made answer. "No soul whom I ever have known 
Have I seen for a week, till last night I met you 
And the major. I like to be captain and crew 
Now and then, and go drifting wherever the stream 
May incline me. The moonlight invites me to dream. 
And a dreamer is ever unsocial. But pray, 
Are you here for the season, or only a day ? " 

" For a month, Mr. Trent ; and I hope you will stay 
While we tarry. My friends would not take a denial, 



GERALBINE. 83 

And brought me along nolens volens. My vial 
Of wrath at their folly is empty at last ; 
For I think I could bear it a while to be cast 
On a desert indeed, with both you and the major 
To cheer me." 

" You 're talking of me, I will wager, 
In ways that you should not," that gentleman said, 
Coming up. " But no matter, I 've been for the bread 
And the butter, and pickles, and now we are going 
Aboard." 

The small steamer her whistle was blowing 
In little shrill screams that suggested his waking 
From reverie deep the night previous. Taking 
Their way to the yacht, they were off very soon 
For a morning's delight, and a long afternoon 
Mid the islands that skirt the Canadian shore. 
It was one of those days to stand out evermore 
In your memory, after you live them, divine 
From the Maker's own hand, with a shimmer and shine, 
And a marvellous glow that are rare as the mornings 
Of God. And all Nature had donned the adornings 
Of beauty, and wore them with grace like a queen. 
Every islet seemed glad in its garments of green ; 
And the far-away hills of the mainland were beaming 
With brightness against the blue sky. 

Slowly steaming 
Adown the wide channel for two or three miles, 
They then rounded their course for the Lake of the Isles. 
How it sleeps, with the islands embracing it round, 
In its beautiful, silvery silence profound ! 
The sweet charm of content is upon it, unbroken 
By sound of unrest, or the presence or token 
Of man. There is nothing to trouble the dreams 
That are born of its beauty, save haply the screams 



84 



GEBALBINE. 




Of some hawk as he greedily chases his prey, 
Or the plash of a fish in the water. 

" Some day 
I would die in a beautiful silence like this, 
And go out of the world with the world's wooing kiss 
To withhold me," said Trent, in a low underbreath, 
To the friend at his side. 

" Don't remind me of death 
In the midst of such beauty and peace," she replied. 
" I would live on forever within it ! " 



GERALBINE. 85 

She sighed ; 
But her face wore a smile as she spoke. 

"I'm a heathen 
You '11 think, Mr. Trent ; but no fancy to me than 
The fancy of death is more dreadful. I can't 
Overcome it. It 's foolish, I 'm ready to grant ; 
But I shrink from all thought of just dying — just giving 
Up breath, and so — stopping forever. My living 
Don't count for so much, I admit, as it might, 
For myself and my friends ; and I value it light 
As you possibly could do. It isn't that I 
Am so anxious to live; but I don't want — to die." 

They were sitting, it chanced, just a trifle apart, 
And unheard by the rest. 

" It is not in the art 
Of the preacher to make such a commonplace thing 
Of this dying as some would fain make it. The sting 
Of mortality is and must be that it perishes. 
Nothing can last that the heart fondly cherishes 
Here " — and he paused. 

" Yes, of course. And I know 
That this body of mine, and this being, must go 
Very soon the one way of all flesh ; yet the thought 
Is a horror to me — that our bodies are brought 
Into life for a little, to trouble and care for, 
To keep, and at times, perchance, put up a prayer for; 
And loving them much, it may be, from such caring, 
We then must accept for them only the faring 
Of death and the grave. We were made, I believe, 
For a destiny better." 

• " Some error of Eve 
Played the mischief with destiny, I have been told, 
If to answer your comment I may be so bold," 



86 GERALDINE. 

Said the major, approaching, who heard the last sentence. 
" The whim of a woman, the lasting repentance 
Of man, — that's the way it has been ever since. 
While the whims amuse you, they may cause us to wince 
Pretty often. I 'm ' posted,' — I carry the scars." 
And he laughed as he spoke. 

" But not one of them mars 
Your abounding conceit, Major Mellen. Your pride 
In subduing the feminine heart will abide 
Any stabs you are likely to feel." 

" Such sarcasm 
Demands from somebody a fit cataplasm. 
I go, Mrs. Lee, to receive it." 

He bowed 
Very humbly, and turned on his heel. 

" I 've. allowed 
Major Mellen to say such unmerited things 
Of my sex, that I really must silence his flings 
In the future, I fancy," she laughing remarked. 

They were silent a little ; then all disembarked 

For their dinner. A cool, grassy point that projected 

From one of the islands was wisely selected, 

In sight of the Lake of the Isles. There the trees 

Made a murmurous music as stirred by the breeze ; 

The half-silence was sweet with the odor of flowers ; 

And pretty green islets, like shyly hid bowers, 

Slept there in the sun, with their green garments trailing 

The water that kissed them, and seemed as if sailing 

Adown a green river to seas undiscovered 

By mortal. Some saint of the beautiful hovered 

About the rare spot, and enchanted it. 

Verily 
Dinner out-doors should be eaten quite merrily 



GEEALBINE. 




Ever ; for half of the pleasure you take in it 

Lies in the jovial mirth that you make in it. 

Always some flies will get into the cream of it; 

Fish that are frying will burn ere you dream of it; 

Milk that at morning was sweet has been learning < 

The secret of Nature that hints of a churning ; 

The butter that's "come" may have hastened by running; 

Mosquitoes, persistent with bills, keep a-dunning; 

The table is always a doubtful thing under 

Its showy pretences, and causes a wonder 

If crockery rests in a state of security ; 

Coffee goes down with a fear for its purity ; 

Seats are uncertain, and spiders abundant, 

The ladies complain : there is nothing redundant — 

That's quite beyond question — except it be fun; 

But you almost regret when the dinner is done ; 

For the atmosphere tones up your nerves like a tonic ; 

The winds and the waves make a murmur harmonic ; 



88 GEBALBINE. 

You sit in the shadows, and see the wide world, 
All its streamers of sunlight in splendor unfurled, 
Roll along in glad glory to-morrow to meet, 
And there's more in your dinner than merely to eat. 

When this dinner was ended, they idled a while 

On the banks of the beautiful evergreen isle. 

Mr. Percival Trent, idling dreamily, laid 

Himself down, like the dreamer he was, in the shade 

Of a tree but a step from the others. To him 

Was the cup of delight even full to its brim. 

He had laughed and made merry this hour with the rest ; 

He would taste now the apples of gold that were pressed 

To his hungering lips, — the sweet fancies that flitted 

So bright through his brain. 

" He has saddled and bitted 
His Pegasus, certain," the major declared, 
" And is off on a gallop. If any here dared 
Overhaul him at present, I fear they would find 
It a hard road to travel that 's always inclined 
To the Pisgah of dreams." 

" I must say it were fitter 
To speak of yourself, seems to me, as the bitter — 
The bitter reviler of genius at times. 
Did you try to reach heaven by a ladder of rhymes 
Years ago, Major Mellen, and fail ? " 

" Mrs. Lee, 
You are always a mild inquisition to me. 
A few people were born with an interrogation 
Curled up on the end of their tongue. Moderation 
In questioning might be a virtue with these. 
They are slow with their statements, but busy as bees 
With conundrums." 

" Some men never make a reply 



GEBALDINE. 89 

To the plainest of questions," she said, "but decry 
Every question that misses their lips. I was seeking 
A reason why you should forever be speaking 
So lightly of rhyme and its spirit. Success 
In pursuit of a thing seldom gives to one less 
Of respect for it." 

" Well, you are free to impute 
To me failure in wooing the Muse. To refute 
Any false implication were idle indeed. 
If my Pegasus proved but a slow-going steed, 
And I early dismounted in common disgust, 
I 've a host of good company plodding the dust 
Of our highway afoot. And I fancy the way 
Of the rhymer, wherever his fancy may stray, 
Is like that of the wicked : I think, my dear madam, 
The path of the poet has known its McAdam." 

" McAdam made hard what each Eve has made easy 
Then, truly," she answered, with laugh that was breezy 
And light. " I incline to the common belief 
That the mother of poets is love, and the chief 
Inspiration of rhyme is the sensitive heart. — 
Is it so, Mr. Trent ? " 

" You have guessed it, in part, 
Mrs. Lee. If the rhyme be inspired in the least. 
Then the heart or the fancy, by aid of a priest 
Of the pen, must have wedded itself to the thought. 
And some glow of true feeling is certainly caught 
In the verse of the rhymer, when once it be found 
With the laurel of true immortality crowned. 
I believe there are volumes of rhyme written out, 
As to which we may harbor a lenient doubt 
If they ever were born of a true inspiration. 
The art of mechanics has blind consecration 



90 GERALDINE. 

In person of some who would wear the green bays 
Of the world's generosity." 

" One of these days," 
Said the major with pride, " you may look for a poet 
In me. When my heart is full swept, you will know it 
By melody rare from its quivering strings. 
As the swan must be dying when sweetest he sings, 
You may know I have come to my absolute fate 
When I utter the notes that are sweetest." 

" The mate 
Of the swan is the goose, Major Mellen, that misses 
The music of better bred birds in its hisses 
So sibilant. He that irreverent mocks 
The rich note of a swan may produce a few squawks, 
And betray his true species." 

She took a delight, 
As it seemed, in sarcastic allusion. 

"I might 
Pick a quarrel with you, my good cousin, for words 
So sarcastic and cruel. Our mention of birds 
Has evoked a whole flock of the turbulent daws 
Over yonder, that utter their parrot-like ' caws ' 
Like a woman hard pressed for a sensible reason. 
To give you back torment in kind would be treason 
To gallantry, sore as I 'm tempted. Alas, 
That a man is compelled to let ridicule pass 
From a woman unanswered ! To wish I were one 
Of the privileged sex I could often have done, 
Had I never remembered what one of them said, — 
That, because as a woman she never must wed 
Any woman, she even could feel reconciled 
To her lot." 

" The good Montagu painted it mild, 
My dear major, for her. She was talking for men 



GERALDINE. 



91 



To be pleased, and to quote her thereafter. And then 
Lady Mary was vexed that the men should fare better 
In marriage than women could fare." 

" I 'm your debtor 
Again, Mrs. Lee. Don't increase the large debt 
By some stroke of your tongue more sarcastical yet. 
Let us take to the water, like ducks, with a quack ; " 
And he nudged a good doctor near by. " To be back 
At a sensible hour, we must speedily start." 




All at once went aboard, and prepared to depart. 

The main channel is narrow, that leads from the lake ; 

But a dozen make off from it soon, and partake 

Of the tint of the little green islets. So deep 

Is the hue of the streams, that the islands, asleep 

On their bosom with verdure luxuriant, seem 

To be part of them ever. You sail in a dream, 



92 GEBALDINE. 

Winding in, winding out, in a labyrinth sweet 
With the wood-blossoms thick in their silent retreat ; 
And you fancy that here, in its beauty supernal, 
This calm afternoon is unending, eternal. 

At length, when emerged from the river's glad maze, 
They were on a broad channel, lit up by the rays 
Of the down-going sun. Across yonder, Canadian 
Hills sloped away in a beauty Arcadian ; 
Down the wide stream unobstructed, the view 
Reached afar to the low-bending canopy blue; 
On the right, close at hand, were the Paradise Isles, 
With their loveliness spanning the magical miles; 
Over all, the soft glamour of sunset, as calm 
And serene as the peace of a hallowing psalm. 

" The St. Lawrence is waiting its laureate yet, 
Mr. Trent. With your words to its melody set, 
It might come to its own by and by." 

There was ever 
In Mrs. Lee's tone a mild flattery. 

" Never 
Can measure and melody happier wed, 
I 'm afraid, Mrs. Lee," hesitating, he said, 
"Than in Moore's little lyric of days long ago, 
When he echoed the musical ' Row, brothers, row,' 
Of Canadian boatmen. Its mellowing flow 
I recall very often at twilight. He penned it 
Not far down the river, whose placid waves lend it 
A charm I shall never forget." 

"How could Moore, 
Having seen the St. Lawrence, return to the poor, 
Meagre life he had known? If you happen to learn 
Why those poets who visit here ever return 



GERALDINE. 93 

To the feverish towns, will you tell me ? It seems 
To me certain that this is the river of dreams." 

" Do men die in their dreams, Mrs. Lee ? If they did, 

Then the ruin and wreck of some lives would be hid 

In a merciful way from their heeding. We live 

As we must. 'Tis not all a receiving. We give 

Of ourselves to the world, in return for its gifts. 

Every hindrance or help that in some manner lifts 

Us up nearer the ideal life should be held 

For the good of our fellows. The hermit, impelled 

To a lonely and selfish career, only cheats 

His own being. His life is a canker, that eats 

Out his soul. We may dream now and then by the way, 

But to take on the armor, and fight as we may 

When our respite is over." 

"All poets, I thought 
Till I knew you, were dreamers forever, and fought 
But in fancy. You seem to be double : you carry 
An active and passive that will not quite marry 
In one; for you work and you dream, and do each 
To the uttermost. What a "magnificent reach 
There must be and there is to your life !. Do you feel 
How much broader it is than the most?" 

"Don't reveal 
My conceit, Mrs. Lee, with your questions," he parried. 
"I think that myself is quite happily married 
To all that is in me. My labor and rest 
Never trouble each other. My vigor and zest 
With my indolence ever are fully agreed : 
I 'm as willing to stop as I am to proceed, 
When a good time for stopping has come. And the scope 
Of all life is the same, — from the fear to the hope, 
From the doubt of the mortal, far on, till it holds 



94 GERALDINE. 

By the Infinite, where the immortal unfolds 
Into trust. There is never a being more broad 
Than to reach from itself to the merciful God." 

After that, they were thoughtful and silent a while. 

A rare flush on the sky held the grace of a smile, 

As if heaven, bending over the earth in its sleep, 

Saw a beauty to win it, ere pausing to weep 

In the dews of the night, over sadness and sorrow 

That darkened to-day, and must sadden to-morrow. 

The evening wore on with much laughter and jest 

From the others. The glow faded out of the west; 

And the stars, in their marvellous shimmer and sheen, 

Like a glimmer of glory, fell softly between 

The old day and the new. 'T was a time to be glad 

In some quiet of soul such as he must have had, 

Who, asleep on the plain, saw a ladder of light, 

And the angels of God bringing peace through the night. 

By and by they swung round, and across the broad sweep 
Of the river below, as along the soft steep 




GEEALBINE. 95 

Of the sky the late moon slowly climbed. 

" It has' been 
A rare day, Mrs. Lee. If one never could win 
His lost paradise back, had he known days like this 
He could make for himself a few ages of bliss 
Out of memory." 

" Woman lost Eden to man ; 
But he finds it again in her love." 

" If he can," 
Said the major, near by, who had half overheard. 

" If he will, I suggest as the much truer word," 
Mrs. Lee quick retorted. 

" Oh, well, he is willing 
Forever, good cousin," he answered, " and thrilling 
Quite often with sense of a paradise new, 
But as often thrust out of it. Eves have been true 
To their early example always." 

"Mr. Trent, 
Is there nothing can make Major Mellen repent 
Such heretical speeches ? " 

But Trent only smiled. 
" He has nothing, in fact, to repent of. Such wild 
And erratic assertions serve nought from his lips, 
But to put for a moment his thought in eclipse, 
As we all are aware. He 's a genius for saying 
What nobody doubts more than he does." 

" But praying 
The pardon of poets for trespassing thus 
As a poacher upon their dominion, and plus 
The humility even I feel to be found 
By a poet himself on the privileged ground 
Without proper consent, I would emphasize keenly 
The right of all men to what poets serenely 



96 



GERALDINE. 



Accept for themselves, — to exaggerate feeling, 
Dissemble the thought they profess to revealing, 
Make statements as fact that are half absurd fancies, 
And build upon fiction their idle romances." 

The major talked smoothly at times, with that flavor 
Satirical still in his words. 

"There are graver 
And guiltier crimes, Major Mellen, than one 
You accuse yourself of, and then hasten to run 
To excuses for ever committing it. Stay 
In the poets' preserves quite as long as you may, 
I can promise that they will forgive the affront, 
If you bring us some game at the end of your hunt,' , 
Mrs. Lee made him answer. 

" Don't make game of me 
In such cold-blooded fashion, I beg, Mrs. Lee. 
We are near to the landing, let all disembark 
Before you shall cruelly fire the whole park 
Of artillery light which is hid in your speech : 
There are others, you know, who might be within reach." 
So with laughter and jest the day came to its close 
Eor them all far along in the evening. Repose 
Was as sweet as the day had been rare, and the vision 
Of dreams that it brought had a beauty Elysian. 




X. 




tU FTER this, there were days upon days 
of delidit 



Unalloyed. Percy Trent wrote to Ger- 

aldine quite 
An unselfish account of his generous 

pleasure. 
" I find in mere being," he said, " such 

a measure 
Of happy content as I never have dreamed 
When away from your side. Never gladness so gleamed 
In the sunlight, as simply perennial seems 
To one lingering here on the River of Dreams, 
As the bright Mrs. Lee christens it. It is queer 
That herself and the major should chance to be here 
The same season with me. I am glad that they came, 
Though their purpose and mine are not nearly the same. 
They are here just to lose a few weeks out of life : 
I am dreaming, the better to bear in the strife 
A man's part by and by. It is well to recruit 
For the battle to be. It is well that the lute 
Should hang silent a while, that to-morrow its song 
May be clearer and truer, more certain and strong. 
Major Mellen is much as he was long ago, 
Only bitterer grown in his speech ; but we know, 
Who have known him the longest, how much that he feigns 
To be earnest is said for effect. That he pains 

7 



98 GERALDWE. 

Me at times with his cynical sneers, I admit, 

Notwithstanding; and often I laugh at his wit, 

When I grieve with a hurt that is sudden and keen, 

For he spares not the holiest things. He has seen 

Some experience sad, I'm persuaded, — more sad 

That its lasting effect on his life has been bad. 

He was always a doubter of everything true, 

As a fact, or in word. ' Give the devil his due,' 

After all ; and the major has many good traits. 

He is capital company often, and hates 

Every sham with a hatred that urges assault 

Of the fiercest. I fancy, at times, that his fault 

Of condemning the right has grown out of long seeing 

So much of the wrong and the false, and of being 

So keenly alive to pretence. 

"Mrs. Lee 
And myself are the best of good friends, if to be 
Always frank and outspoken together, to find 
Satisfaction in similar moods of the mind, 
To have sympathies somewhat in common, may make 
Us all that. She has known, I am certain, the ache 
Of a heart that is strong in its passion, unfolding 
Its riches with never a thought of withholding, — 
The pain that I fancy some women must keep 
Throughout life, in a poverty wretched and deep 
That was born of their prodigal love. Is there balm 
For such aching of soul ? In the liberal palm 
Of the white hand of Peace, is there quiet and rest 
For such throbbings of pain in so troubled a breast ? 
I am syllabling questions I only have thought 
Hitherto. Though quite often with her, I have sought 
In no manner to learn what her sorrow has been — 
What it has been, perchance what it is. I begin 
To be reverent even in presence of souls 



GEBALBINE. 



99 



That have hidden away in their silence the scrolls 
Of their own revelation. No idle perusal 
May learn of the secrets they hold in refusal 
From men. 

" I suspect Mrs. Lee knew the arts 
Of a finished coquette, and made playthings of hearts, 
In some earlier time : there 's no hinting, however, 
Of conquest to-day in her social endeavor. 
She treats all her friends in a courteous way 
That is pleasant to see ; but I think she could play 




A sad havoc with feelings the tenderest still, 
If to times opportune she but added the will. 
Do I hold her the less in respect for believing 
She may have been guilty of ruthless receiving, 



100 GERALDINR 

Aware that she could not give back in return ? 

It is true that I might, if I yet had to learn 

That a woman wrongs man just to gratify her 

Present mood, not to scarify him. I demur 

But the least to her pleasing herself, if the hurt 

She inflict be not truly malicious. A flirt 

Who should send a man off into grimmest despair, 

Just to see him writhe on in his agony there, 

I would simply despise ; but a woman delighting 

Herself with the winning of love, and inviting 

Its largess for pleasure it gives her alone — 

Why, her motive might partly, in my view, atone 

For the harm growing out of her deed. For of right 

A man owes to your sex all the wealth of delight 

He is able to pay. 

" Do you smile at my reasoning ? 
Well, you will pardon a moderate seasoning 
Of the absurd in my argument. Those 
Who are victims of feminine art, I suppose, 
Judge more harshly than I do concerning it. You, 
Who so easily might have made many to rue 
Your attractiveness, ought with compassion to look 
On another who possibly some time forsook 
The true heights of her womanhood, found the low plane 
Of coquetry, and made of her beauty a vain 
Ignis fatuus, leading some men to their grief. 
I have half been inclined to the foolish belief 
That the major has suffered from Mrs. Lee's lack 
Of requital in fullest degree ; that far back 
In his younger young manhood he loved her, as men 
Like himself are not apt to love ever again. 
And why not ? They were friends long ago, it appears, 
In a friendship that not very seldom endears 
To the uttermost one or the other who feels it. 



GEBALDINK 101 

If sensitive yet from the hurt, he conceals it 
Remarkably well, it is true ; yet a stoical 
Nature like his may be truly heroical, 
Smiling despite of its pain. 

" But you care 
Very little for him or his past, I 'm aware : 
I'll not speak of them further. And as to my present, 
I own that I find it so wondrously pleasant, 
I would not consign it to yesterday soon. 
The fair land of the Future may yield as its boon 
Such another rare season of beauty and bliss ; 
But I doubt if I find it hereafter in this." 

So he gave himself up to his rhapsodies mild 
When he wrote of the river. Its beauties beguiled 
Him to frequent extravagant speech. That his eyes 
Saw no every-day beauty with aught of surprise 
She knew well. Was there loveliness for him so rare 
As alone to enchant him thus utterly ? Fair 
As the River of Dreams might appear in his sight, 
Could it thrill him to keenest ecstatic delight - 
With its beauty alone ? Did no presence apart 
From inanimate things take a hold on his heart 
As with masterful sweetness ? 

If questions like these 
Were in Geraldine's thought, by the slowest degrees 
Did they syllables take, and then ask to be heard 
Of her love. And no query of wonder, no word 
Of inquiry, escaped her to him. It was well 
That he linger thus long at the Islands to tell 
Her of beauty and blessing they yielded him. So 
She made answer in brief, and was glad in the glow 
Of his gladness, without a foreboding or dread. 
She could trust, and would trust to the end, she had said ; 



102 



GEBALDINE. 



And the end must be well, let it bring what it would, 
Since a Father so loving and tender and good 
Had its shaping and care. 

There are natures that keep 
Such a faith in such wise ; but, if moved to the deep 
Of their possible doubting, the tempest that rages 
Within them grows wilder till nothing assuages 
But words of the Master, with tenderest thrill 
Speaking out through the darkness their " Peace ! " and 
"Be still!" 




XL 




HEY had dined at Deer Island, a dozen 
or more 
f% Of the seekers for pleasure. A half- 

shaded shore 
Gave them welcome ; its turf, that 

was mossy and sweet, 
Running down to the water to wel- 
come their feet; 




And its trees, that were sentinels faithful and strong 
Of the years, breathing out a monotonous song 
Of old summers departed, half song and half sigh, 



104 GEBALDINE. 

And inviting them listless and dreamy to lie 

In the quivering shadows when dinner was done : 

So they lingered in happy abandon. The sun, 

When they took to their boats, had sunk low in the west, 

And the night would be moonless ; the river's fair breast 

Was resplendent with ripples of silver and gold 

As the breezes sprang up, and, with dalliance bold 

And with passionate kisses, beguiled its repose 

Into sighing unrest. They were near to the close 

Of a glad day together, — these two we have traced 

In their talk and their feeling a while. 

" It 's a waste 
Of fine weather to think of returning so soon," 
Mrs. Lee made remark. " And this whole afternoon 
Has gone by like a dream. Do I live, Mr. Trent? 
Do I verily sip the sweet cup of content 
As it seems that I do ? Is regret but a thing 
Of the past?" 

" Into seasons like this not a sting 
Of old memories ever should enter," he said. 
" Let the dead of your yesterdays bury its dead ; 
Drink the cup of content with no lingering glances 
Behind. There is joy ' in the present. Romances 
Forever abide in the future. Look out 
On the shall-be as I do, with never a doubt 
Of its bringing the best of your being." 

He lifted 
The oars as he spoke, and they silently drifted 
Adown the still stream. 

"Do you never feel fear 
Of the future ? " she asked. " Do you never seem near 
To some terrible tragedy ? Are you so certain 
Of good you could lift the invisible curtain 
Of years with no tremor of heart ? " 



GEEALBINE. 105 

With surprise 
He looked deep in the depths of her beautiful eyes 
Ere he answered, — 

" My friend, you are keen at divining 
Some thoughts unexpressed ; for I have been inclining 
To fear of my morrows of late. And I stand, 
As I fancy at times, on debatable land, 
Between gladness and grief. In these days of delight 
I am far up the mountains of being, in sight 
Of that Beulah where grief is unknown ; but I know 
There are valleys of Baca through which men must go 
Ere they climb to the summits of blessing. I wait 
With a painful expectancy, early or late, 
The upwellings of fountains of bitterness. When 
They appear, I must drink, as do all other men." 

" And some women," she added : " indeed, you might say 
And all women. The waters that flow by our way 
Are as Marah sometimes." 

"There are few, I believe, 
Who drink only the sweetness of life. But to grieve 
Over sorrow gone by is not worse than to shrink 
From some possible sorrow before. We must drink 
The full cup of to-morrow, whatever the draught ; 
But, or bitter or sweet, it is not to be quaffed 
Till to-morrow presents it. Sufficient indeed 
To the day is the evil thereof; and the need 
Of us all is a present of glad satisfaction, 
Where nought of the past makes unhappy exaction, 
And nought of the future repels or dismays." 

" And you live in the present ? " returning his gaze, 
"Altogether, I mean, with no pain of the past 
Throbbing up, and no glamour of happiness cast 



106 GERALDINE. 

On the days that are coming?" 

He smiled a reply 
Before speaking. 

"My patient confessor, if I 
Should admit that I look for some gladness supreme 
In the future, that, doing to-day, I but dream 
Of endeavor the proudest to-morrow, 'twould seem 
Contradictory. I have admitted the truth, 
That I fear in the future some possible ruth 
Full of peril to peace ; that I shrink from my morrows 
In doubt. But the future is broad ; and it borrows 
A radiance often from glories that crown 
Us with gladness to-day. And I never look down 
The long vista of years, without seeing beyond 
All their possible gloom an illuming as fond 
As the kisses of dawn on the world. I am glad 
Of some day that 's to be. If one morrow prove sad, 
I shall come to another, please God ! " 

" A glad faith," 
She responded. " But what of the past ? Does no wraith 
Of some buried desire ever enter your room, 
As you sit in the silence of solitude's gloom, 
And torment you with words of regret ? You have said, 
4 Let the dead of your yesterdays bury its dead.' 
Do your dead never walk ? Is there never a ghost 
Of dead love or dead hope to intrude when you most 
Would forget that you ever had hollowed a grave ? 
Does your past sink aWay, as this shell in the wave, 
Out of sight, out of mind?" and she tossed a bright shell 
She had held, in the water. 

" No funeral knell 
Has been rung in my past," he responded with feeling, 
His sympathy touched by her sudden revealing 
Of hidden emotion. " I 've stood by no bier 



GERALDINE. 107 

Of my love or my hope. I can sit with you here, 

And can say that my past has been pleasant and good ; 

That my present you make, as but one other could, 

Satisfying, complete." And he noted the glow 

Of a tenderer light in her eyes, and the flow 

Of a deeper tint into her face. "I regret 

Only duty ill done. I can never forget 

What is gone, let it be whatsoever it may ; 

Not the less would I live as I should in to-day, 

But remembering yesterday only for smiles 

That it gave " — 

" Seeing somewhere the paradise isles 
Of your dream by the sea?" interrupting him. 

" Yes, 
Looking out on the billows before, I confess 
In the faith that beyond their unrest there is calm 
For us all in the infinite islands of balm." 

" Will you teach me your faith ? I am hungry for hope 

In the years. With the greatest of griefs I could cope, 

Could I only believe that beyond it is bliss. 

You have much to make glad : there is much that I miss, 

And but little I hold, and of this you have given 

The most. On the wings of your friendship I 've striven 

To mount where the lark of your happiness sings : 

I am weighted too heavy, I fear, for the wings, 

Since I cannot fly far, and each flight only brings 

Its discouragement." 

" Would I could lift you with me 
To the heights of a happy content, Mrs. Lee ! 
To do this, my dear friend, I would cheerfully give 
Half a year of the life that is left me to live." 

She but smiled at his words. 



108 



GEBALJDINE. 



"I doubt not, my dear friend, 
You would give, quite as freely as others would lend, 
All you have — but the one thing you caunot." 

"And that?" 

She was silent a little, and motionless sat, 
Looking into the depths of the shimmering deep. 




" Is a love that is tender and strong, that can sweep 
Me up out of the gloom with its passionate grasp, 
And then hold me content in the quickening clasp 
Of its sunlight, — the love of a masterful heart 
Full of power, most learned in the delicate art 
Of its loving, most tender and loving indeed 
When its pity could see there was bitterest need — 
Such a love as a man gives one woman in life." 



GERALDINE. 109 

" And God pity him, then, if she be not his wife, 
Or may not be ! " he said with quick fervor. 

"And she 
Who so needs such a love, in whose heart there can be 
Such a hunger without it?" 

" God pity her too, 
In his infinite love, as all loving souls do ! " 

There were tears in her eyes as she questioned : each word 

Had a thrill that was strange as he answered. She heard, 

And was silent again for a moment, averting 

Her face from his gaze. Sudden passion asserting 

Itself in his breast, like a prisoner beating 

Against the hard bars of his prison, entreating 

For liberty, moved him beyond his control. 

He was swayed by a tempest undreamed of. His soul, 

Looking out of its windows of feeling, saw only 

Another soul, helpless and hopeless and lonely, 

And groping so after some path to the light 

And the cheer he could give as he must. In his sight 

She was near to the heights he had named. He could lift 

Her to peace and content by the plenteous gift 

Of his love, that was giving itself as if now 

It had first love's rare charity learned, — to endow 

Needy being with riches untold. 

Ere he broke 
Into utterance wild and vehement, she spoke. 
" I 'm but one of a thousand who hunger and thirst 
For their manna in Egypt; who wander accursed 
In a wilderness dreary, forever unblest 
By the gift of that land which they should have possessed 
But for doubting and fears. I shall die in my Edom, 
And know not the gladness of faith that is freedom, 
And service of heart that is scripture the sweetest. 



110 GEBALDINE. 

My lot with the heathen Egyptian were meetest, 
Unled by the Moses of love toward a land 
I may never behold." 

" When I gave you my hand 
As your friend, Mrs. Lee, I had little to offer 
Of worth, as I said ; and, if now I should proffer 
Such love as you speak of, it might seem as meagre 
To you." He spoke low, with an emphasis eager 
And quick. " Could I lead to the plenty that lies 
Beyond Edom ? My soul in its solitude cries 
For companionship such as it never has missed 
Till this hour. In the silence I tremble and list 
For your answer." 

She looked in his eloquent face 
With a hungering look that will ever have place 
In his memory, tears overflowing her cheeks. 

"You must hear how my heart in its gratitude speaks 
A reply that my lips cannot utter. Its throbs 
Are so strong, they would shape all my words into sobs, 
Did I try. As the call of a bird to its mate 
That has lingered too long, and is home-flying late, 
Even winning and tender as this is the cry 
Of your soul unto mine ; and as glad would it fly, — 
This poor shivering soul that is silent so long, — 
Full as glad would it mount to the summits of song 
With your own by its side, as when, night-shadows gone, 
The glad warblers will wing themselves up to the dawn 
In a sunburst of music. My comrade and friend, 
Could you walk with me now, from this day to the end, 
You could be — ah, how keenly I feel it and know it ! — 
Both heaven and the way. But you cannot. The poet 
Within you may pity my need ; and the man, 
In his passion of feeling that generous ran 



GERALDINE. Ill 

To my help, may give all that he hath, even this 
That is treasure the greatest of all : but the bliss 
Of possession can never be mine. Do not ask 
Any reason. For you I have lifted the mask 
Of my heart, and you see it all quivering here, 
As none other has seen or will see it." 

" So near 
Have I come, as you say, my dear friend, to your side, 
To be put thus away? Let whatever betide, 
You must linger a while in my love. You have waited 
Too lonely and long for the comrade belated 
By fate, to repel him, or bid him farewell 
With a half-recognition. My passion must tell 
Its sweet story yet over and over again 
In your ears. I must give you with lips and with pen, 
As a prodigal gives, of the wealth of my heart, 
Till you go from your poverty gladly apart, 
And I wander a pauper forever, unless 
You are prodigal too in return. I would bless 
And be blest. May I not?" 

So he pleaded, the strength 
Of his passion possessing him quite, till at length 
It had mastered him utterly. Could she withstand 
Such entreaty ? 

" My friend, when you gave me your hand 
As my friend, you gave much to a beggar for much, 
And your friendship had in it a hallowing touch 
That uplifted. My life had been swept passion-clean, 
As I thought. In my desert no budding of green 
Could give beauty again, I believed. You have shown 
My mistake ; but not less must I wander alone 
Through the wilderness ever. Some manna is mine 
By the way ; and this day's is the nearest divine, 
And the sweetest, that ever my hungering soul 



112 GEBALDINE. 

Has made feast of. If only such generous dole 

Could be mine through the years ! " with a passionate thrill 

Overflowing her speech. 

"As it can, if you will," 
He persisted. 

She shook her head sadly. 

"No more, 
If you love me. But see ! we are far from the shore, 
And a storm is approaching." And as she thus spoke, 
On the twilight's dim silence a thunder-peal broke, 
And aroused him. 

Quick over the north there had spread 
A black gathering mass, that grew dense overhead 
While he looked. A dull moan was borne out on the air 
From the pines in the distance. The day, that was fair 
As a vision of peace, had departed in wrath 
That would quickly envelop them. Straight in the path 
Of the storm they were floating, as stoutly he bent 
To his oars without answer, and rapidly sent 
The light craft o'er the water. 

" Some shelter we '11 find 
Over yonder, I think, if we do not much mind 
What it is," by and by he remarked. " It is plain 
That the deluge will come very soon. We must gain 
Any harbor that offers." 

He rowed with his might, 
While the storm, sweeping on with the speed of the night 
That it deepened too early, was nearing them fast, 
And they heard the wild shriek of its trumpeting blast. 




XII. 



MAGNIFICENT picture he saw as he 
rowed : 
On his left, in the west, there yet 

lingered and glowed 
The last rays of the sun, in a light 

that was yellow 
As gold, and suffusing the sky with 
their mellow 
Effulgence ; the clouds coming nearest were red 
As the crimson that flows from the battle-field's dead, 
And above them were opal and purple and gray ; 
To the north, moving forward in martial array, 
Were dense masses of darkness, and through them the flame 
Of the lightning burned swift ere the thunder-peals came 
With their torrent of sound. Far away, where the sky 
In the lap of the hills appeared closest to lie, 
The black mass became silvern ; for rain had begun 
In the valley beyond, where the lingering sun 
Threw its light on a lower horizon., 

On swept 
The dark masses above, while the silvern sheet kept 
Its way slower and gentler below, like a veil 
Slipping down o'er the world in compassion. The gale 
Would be on them before they could land, so it seemed. 
More intense grew the darkness o'erhead ; brighter gleamed 
The mad lightning, more frequent its flame ; all the west 



114 



GEEALDINE. 



In a moment was shrouded in shadow. The crest 

Of each wave, as the water grew wilder apace, 

Led the swift-flying boat on a wearying race 

For the shore. Yet the strokes of the rower were strong, 

Though he wearied. The storm was at hand ; but the long 




Way was over at last, as he lifted the skiff 
Half its length on the sand, at the base of a cliff 
Not too steep for their climbing. 

" I '11 draw up the boat, 
So the waves cannot easily wash it afloat," 
Nearly breathless he said, as he helped her alight. 
" There 's a cottage here somewhere, I 'm certain, which might 
Give us shelter the best, could we find it. The island 



GEBALDINE. 115 

Is small, I imagine. We '11 climb to the highland 
And see." 

So they bent their steps upward, her hand 
In his own. On the highest uplift of the land, 
In the midst of a grove rather scanty, appeared 
A low cabin untenanted. Even this cheered 
Their endeavor, and led them a welcome to seek 
From its shelter uncertain. The door offered weak 
And quick-conquered resistance. They entered as down 
Fell the rain in a flood. 

" We 're not likely to drown, 
Anyhow, Mrs. Lee, though the prospect is dark 
As when old Father Noah set sail in his ark. 
How the floods of our deluge unsparingly pour ! 
Hear the winds and the rain as they bellow and roar 
Through the trees ! See the lightning that blazes above us, 
As if the dear Lord had forgotten to love us, 
And came to us now in his Avrath ! It is worth 
A day's wetting to witness him visit the earth 
In the might of his power." 

She shuddered, and drew 
Herself nearer in dread. A fierce thunderbolt flew 
Past their sight, and a crash, as if worlds in collision 
Had met, fairly stunned them. An instant their vision 
Saw nothing ; their senses had gone with the glare 
Of the lightning that vanished in gloom. 

" Let me care 
For you tenderly once, as I can," he appealed, 
As he felt her form tremble. " There must be concealed 
In the cabin some helps to your comfort." 

He made 
His way round in the darkness, now deep, till he laid 
Eager hold on a rickety chair, which he brought 
For her use ; and, on searching still further, he caught 



116 'GERALDINE. 

By the gleam of the lightning a glimpse of a cot 
And a camp-stool. 

" I own that these quarters are not 
What they might be for cheerfulness, " gayly he said; 
"But there could be worse fortune than this that has led 
Us to shelter so dismal. Imagine us yet 
In the tempest out yonder ! We never should get 
To the land with our lives." 

" 'T would have seemed little matter 
To me only yesterday. Life did not flatter 
Me much with its promise, although I confessed 
To a horror of death. There was nought I possessed 
Of a value worth counting. God's beggars have riches 
Far greater than mine. I had torn from their niches 
My idols of cost ; and my heart's wide Valhalla 
Was empty." 

a And now?" 

" You have seen the white calla 
Unfold all its treasure of purity soon 
As the morning blooms full in the 

sweetness of noon? 
Even so has my love for you 

burst into bloom 
From its bud in the dark. It would seem as if gloom 
Must forever be brightened, indeed, with its light ; 
And to-day I have riches untold in the sight 
Of this love that is mine." 

She was speaking in low, 
Suppressed accents, that took indescribable glow 
From the feeling that moved her. He knelt by her side, 
As a reed in the breath of her speech. 

" You denied 
Me the right any longer," he answered, " to plead 
For the sweet privilege of supplying your need 




GEEALBINE. 117 

To the uttermost. All that I am is your own 
To do with as you may. Will you give me a stone 
Of denial again, when I ask for the bread 
Of possession complete ? " 

She but rested her head 
On his shoulder in silence, her heart throbbing fast 
As did his. In possession too perfect to last 
He was hers, she was his, for the moment. He held 
Her supremely his own ; and his passion compelled 
Her glad kisses in answer to his. 

" But a taste 
Of the honey of Canaan is mine in the waste 
Of my wilderness barren," she whispered at length. 
" It has marvellous sweetness." 

"And marvellous strength 
Has this love that I give you," he said in return. 
" I believed I had nothing of passion to learn — " 

" As did I ; and the ratio of this that I feel 
Fairly frightens me. Many a wife would conceal 
Such a fervor of love from her husband ; and I 
Can be never your wife, Heaven pity me ! " 

" Why ? 
What shall keep us apart ? You were made for my holding," 
He passionate said, almost fiercely infolding 
Her close in his arms. " You are mine by the claim 
Of my love, and your ample return. You became 
Wholly mine when confession you made of that love ; 
And I hold you by right and by title above 
All beside." 

" It is madness to let you forget 
Your own ties in this manner. Before we had met, 
You no longer belonged to yourself. Could I keep 
What another might prove to be hers, and so creep 



118 



GERALDINE. 



By and by between me and my claim ? " 

Not a word 
Of reply for a little escaped him. She heard 
In the stillness between the loud thunder his heart 
Beating heavy and quick, saw the color depart 
From his face as the lightning shone on it, and felt 
That he suffered. He rose to his feet where he knelt, 
Put her tenderly from him, and strode to the door 
As if panting for air. It was minutes before 




He made answer in fact ; then his voice sounded broken 
And tremulous. 

" Yes : I am glad you have spoken 
Of what I should first have remembered. I thank 



GERALJDIXE. 119 

You for doing it, since I so wickedly drank 
Of the cup of forgetfulness. Ever its flow 
Must entice me, I fear. 

" A few moments ago," 
Coming to her again, " my dear friend, I was mad 
As the veriest lunatic. Passion has had 
Its free run for a season. It may not outlive me : 
It may, to my sorrow. No matter. Forgive me 
For offering what was not mine to deliver. 
Forget, if you can, what was said — on the river 
And here. Let us be the same friends we have been 
In these days of delight, if we can. Let me win 
My good comrade once more." 

And she gave him her hand 
With a clasp that was warm. 

" You are noble and grand 
As no other man living could be," she declared. 
" In your madness, if madness it were, I have shared : 
Let me share in your penitence, too, Mr. Trent ; 
Though I doubt if indeed I do truly repent. 
It was such a sweet madness ! it thrilled heart and brain 
With such gladness of being ! it stilled all the vain 
And unsatisfied longings that trouble my breast, 
With such tremulant stilling to such a glad rest ! 
I shall love you — I must — though I never may tell you 
Again of my love ; and could loving compel you 
To leave all the world, and to cleave unto me, 
I should never indulge the compulsion, but flee 
From your presence at once. For again let me say, 
I must journey through Edom alone. If the way 
Be so rough that I stumble and fall, you may pray 
In the strength of your faith for my faltering feet, 
That they carry me soon to some rest that is sweet j 
And if prayer can avail one whose faith, in eclipse 



120 GEBALBINE. 

By her doubt, is lost sight of, I 'm certain your lips 
Could efficiency lend it for me. But alas 
For the wilderness lonesome through which I must pass 
From this day to the end ! " 

In the darkness he knew 
There were tears on her face, and he tenderly drew 
Her again to his arms. 

" I can be to you much, 
Though I may not be all," he responded. "And such 
As I freely can give you must freely accept. 
Let what loving has sown, in the future be reaped 
In our friendship. To walk by your side as your friend 
Now and then, you must grant me from this till the end." 

" Between you and my life," she made answer, " there lies 
A great gulf that is deep as the ocean : our cries 
For companionship cross it. You hold me, as here, 
In the arms of your love, with your heart beating near, 
But we stand far apart on the opposite steeps, 
And between us there bide the impassable deeps. 
Do not ask me my riddle to read. Let me hide 
It away from you now and forever." 

She sighed, 
And he answered her but with caresses, then rose, 
And in silence peered out in the dark. 

" I suppose 
We must manage to stay here till morning. The rage 
Of the storm is subsiding ; but I can't engage 
To return you in safety before. We are far 
From the Bay, and there 's not the first gleam of a star 
Through the gloom. 'T would be folly to think of my 

finding 
Our way up these channels so many and winding 
In darkness like this. I can make you a bed 



GERALDIXR 



121 



On the cot yonder somehow, it may be," he said 
By and by. 

Then he busied himself at his task, 
With some show of success. 

"T is n't all I could ask 
For your comfort," he briefly explained, as he made 
His way cautiously back to her side. " With the aid 




Of a blanket or two, and a pillow, I think 
You could rest, very well. As it is, do not shrink 
From accepting the best present poverty yields ; 
And be certain my tenderness watches, and shields 
You from harm." 

" I am weary," she answered, " and glad 



122 GERALDINE. 

Of whatever you offer. No fair lady had 

Truer knight for her service in chivalry's time 

Than will guard me, I know. You should weave into rhyme 

So romantic an episode truly as this is." 

He pointed her words with some lingering kisses 

By way of good-night, and then led her across 

To the couch. 

" No : the world must submit to the loss 
Of our living romance altogether. I hold 
It a thing far too sacred for pen to unfold, 
Even under the veiling of fiction. And then 
You remember my thought, — that the poets don't pen 
Their experience often." 

" Oh, yes ! I remember. 
You make of each poet a perfect dissembler, 
Pretending to what is unfelt, and denying 
The feeling he has any voice, only sighing 
In secret perhaps. If I state it too strong, 
Pray forgive me." 

He laughed. 

" But I own that the song 
May be real to him while he sings, though in fact 
It is fiction the veriest. Singers have lacked 
Less in feeling, indeed, than in fancy. Poetical 
Genius the finest, I fear, is heretical 
Most with regard to the truth, rather shaping 
What might be than telling what is ; sooner draping 
A dream in the garments of beauty, and making 
Men think it of bone and of muscle, than taking 
A skeleton out of the past, and with aching 
Remembrance so robing it round as to show 
What perfection of form fell to dust long ago." 

"But I don't half believe in your theory, though 



GERALDIXE. 123 

You do talk so convincingly sometimes about it. 

One day, I am certain, you '11 even half doubt it 

Yourself. For you poets are men of rare feeling : 

You must be, indeed ; and to think of concealing 

It always is mockery. Even the claim 

That your feeling flows out in some fiction the same 

As in positive sorrow I cannot believe. 

Men may weep at some fancy of grief ; but they grieve 

To the uttermost only when sorrow cuts deep 

To the quick of their souls. And we know, when we weep 

At their words, what the hurt is. The mass of us feel 

The same hurt, it may be, but can never reveal 

Its keen torment because we are dumb. Why is speech 

So denied to the many ? Why is it that each 

Of us has not the gift of expression ? And why 

Must some hearts go through life with a hungering cry 

For the good that they miss, and unable to tell 

What their need is, their hunger, their thirst ? Is it well 

For the world that so many are mutes ? " 

" I 'm unable 
To answer, my friend," he replied. " What a Babel 
Indeed it would be, though, if all were endowed 
With a gift as of tongues, and at once the whole crowd 
Should begin to communicate ! Angels defend us 
From fate so disturbing! May kind fortune send us 
A quieter morrow to die in ! 

44 Complaint, — 
Speaking soberly now, as in fear of some saint 
Of the silent departed, — complaint might be all 
That from lips of the many incessant would fall, 
Were they dowered with speech. They might never give 

voice 
To their hope or their faith ; they might never rejoice 
In some paean of gladness to lift the heart up; 



124 GERALDINE. 

They might never in song press a cheer-giving cup 
To the lips of those fainting and worn in the strife. 
And the best of all -song is the song that is life 
To the dying, it may be, and strength to the weak, 
And sure faith to the helpless, who only can seek 
For some help far beyond them." 

" Yet song that is mellow 
With tenderest feeling, that shows us a fellow- 
Heart throbbing with ours in our need or our pain, 
Has its mission, though born of complaint that was vain 
And unworthy. Our sufferings syllables take 
Of the words of the poets, and solace their ache 
With a half-revelation in language our own 
As we make it so only. No soul sings alone 
In its loneliness truly ; no other soul sighs 
In its bitter regret, without hushing the cries 
Of some near one unseen, but who pauses to hear, 
And in silence is comforted." 

" Doubtful, my dear 
Mrs. Lee. It 's a pretty conceit ; but I fear 
It is rather too fanciful. Song may uplift ; 
But complaint is depressing. The true singing gift 
Should be his who will sing in the world but to gladden it : 
Dirges, indeed, may be sweet ; but they sadden it. 
All I could ask for my Muse would be this : 
That it cheerily sing till some being shall miss, 
When it ceases, a hope and a help, and shall long 
For the singer's return, his renewal of song." 

" But the sweetest of singing has ever a sigh in it ; 
Loving seems always to linger and die in it ; 
All that we catch in the syllables clearest 
Is just a remembrance of what was the dearest 
And nearest to some heart in days long departed." 



GEBALDINE. 125 

" You 've listened, no doubt, till the foolish tears started, 
When he who so tenderly sang was but grieving 
In fancy alone." 

" Is there, then, no believing 
The word of a poet ? " 

" Well, now, I suppose 
If the word be spelled out in good truth-telling prose, 
You may take it," he answered with laugh that was light. 
"But I beg of you stop your conundrums. Good-night! 
Get such rest as you can." 

• " Will you give me a word 
For my dreams that is sweetest the air ever stirred ? 
Say you love me, and say it in prose, that I never 
May doubt it." 

" I love you, shall love you forever," 
He said with low emphasis. 

" Thanks ! I could rest 
Anywhere, anyhow, by such benison blest." 

Then in silence he sat till the morning, his mind 

All a tumult of troubled emotion. Be blind 

To his wretched position no longer could he. 

There was Geraldine Hope I here was Isabel Lee. 

He was far from them both as the night from the day. 

He was far from his faith as forever are they 

Who forever are faithless. And so self-accusing, 

Unspared of his conscience, and grimly refusing 

To smother the stings that it gave, looking out 

On his future with only a harrowing doubt 

Of what might be in store, he awaited the breaking 

Of day. 

Mrs. Lee was asleep ; and forsaking 
The cabin when on the horizon a priest 
Of the dawn began incense to burn in the east, 



126 



GERALDINE. 



He walked down to the water his boat to prepare 

For departure. No traces remained anywhere 

Of their landing. Till sunrise had silvered the dawn 

He made search without finding : the frail craft was gone. 





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XIII. 




HEN the rest of the party returned to 
the Bay, 
Hurried on by the tempest that threat- 
i ened them, they 

Were surprised and alarmed to dis- 
cover that two 
Of their number were missing. But 
nought could they do 
To determine what fate had befallen the twain. 
To go out and make search in the storm would be vain 
As unsafe. 

"They have landed, and there must remain 
In such shelter as chances, wherever it be, 
Until morning," the major remarked. " Mrs. Lee 
Will regard it romantic. It may be that Trent 
Will consider the storm as an episode sent 
For his special advantage. He likes the dramatic 
In life, and was always a trifle erratic 
In love. He may die a true Romeo yet 
In some desperate strait for the last Juliet 
Of his fancy. ,, 

And so Major Mellen, satirical, 
Spoke of his friend. 

" If love shows us a miracle 
Ever," he went on to say, "it is when 
It renews itself over and over again 



128 GERALDINE. 

In the breast of a poet. So often it rises 
Afresh from the dead, it no longer surprises 
With new revelations of being. Besides, 
It so largely increases itself, and divides 
Of its multiplied measure so freely, it shows 
Arithmetical qualities few would suppose 
Could belong to a thing sentimental." 

The sneer 
Of the cynic half hid, half revealed itself, here 
In his words. 

" Percy Trent is in love with my cousin 
As madly as ever he 's been with a dozen 
Before ; but he has n't discovered the fact 
Altogether, I think. When he does, he will act 
Very much as if he had committed the sin 
That has never forgiveness. He never would win 
For the sake of the winning : he never would share 
Of his love where he ought not, if caution or care 
Could prevent it. His creed is the best ; but the fact is, 
His principle does n't quite wed with his practice. 
Don't blame him ! I can't. Every man for his creed 
Is responsible. Let that be right, let it read 
Parallel with the preaching that seems to be best ; 
And society answers for him for the rest. 
What he is, what he does, is small matter, so long 
As the thing he believes is not glaringly wrong. 
Then the heart is indeed a free agent : the head 
Cannot hold it in humble subjection. If led 
Into ways that are wicked, no part of the blame 
Should be thrust upon him who gives only his name 
To the agent, and does not control it. Whose love 
Is within his discretion ? Whose will is above 
His affection, directing and guiding it ? Better 
That hearts should love often than always be debtor 



GEEALBINE. 



129 



To prudence for perfect restraint." 

So he ran 
To his flippant, irreverent speech, that began 
To be reckless at times. 

The next morning shone clear 
As the mornings that dawn in the blush of the year. 
Major Mellen, denying his habit, forsook 
The seduction of sleep. Rising early, he took 
His way down to the wharf, thinking haply to meet 
The belated pair on their return, and to greet 
Them with playful reproach. But his keen vision scanned 
All the channels in vain, to the dim-lying land 




On the Canada side, far away down the stream. 
The wide waters were tinted with morn's rosy gleam, 
And unflecked by a sail. The white flash of an oar 
In the sun was nowhere to be seen. 

Long before 
His late breakfast, the major was anxious, but laughed 



130 GEBALDINE. 

At the fears of the rest. 

u He can manage his craft 
Like a riverman born," so the major contended. 
" If out in it when the quick tempest descended, 
He 'd safely enough make the shore. He 's expert 
With the rod and the line. They have come to no hurt, 
But are breaking their fast in poetical leisure, 
Perfecting a bass in a broil. There 's a pleasure 
For poets in cooking the fruit of their lines, 
As in eating it, under the odorous pines 
Of a solitude wild. Trent would hardly desire 
To be known as a monk ; but a very good frier 
He is, I am certain — of fish. They will fare 
Well enough till we see them again as a pair 
Of meek truants returning to school." 

Yet he made 
Sudden haste to secure the small yacht, nor delayed 
To set out on a mission of quest, when at noon 
The twain missing were still unreported. As soon 
As the search had been fairly begun, he confessed 
To himself an untimely delay, and, impressed 
With a fear undefined, he kept watch as they sailed, 
Half in hope, when they came near the shore, to be hailed 
By the ones whom they sought. Every island they rounded, 
Each headland they scanned, until hope was confounded 
With keen apprehension in all. Not a trace 
Of the boat or its burden appeared. The broad space 
Of the river below the last islands was crossed 
And recrossed yet again, to make sure that the lost 
Were not hinted of there in some manner ; and then 
They went farther above. As they rounded again 
A small island that could not a shelter have given, 
The major caught sight of a skiff that had driven 
Itself on the rocks. 



GERALDINE. 



131 



" It is Trent's ! " he declared, 
With excitement that each of the company shared 
As they neared it. " And stove to a wreck ! We have 
found 

All we shall for the present. They must 
have been drowned 

By upsetting last night in 
the storm." 
j^^, And he o-rew 




Quickly pale as he spoke. When they landed, he flew 
In hot haste to the boat ; but it offered no clew 
To their seeking, beyond its bare presence. It lay 
Without oars, bottom up, badly broken. 

The day 
Was far spent when they gave up the search, and returned, 
Bearing with them the cast-away skiff, having learned 
Xothing more. No one doubted the common conclusion 
Expressed. They had perished. To hope was delusion. 
Their bodies, if found in a day or a week, 
The sad truth could not even more certainly speak. 
The gay world at the Islands made proper lament 



132 



GERALDINE. 



For the hour ; and a thrill of true sorrow was sent 
Through some hearts when the story was told. Before night 
The quick lightning had spread it abroad; and its flight 
Was a message of sadness to many. 

One read 
In the papers next day, with a black-letter head, 
Just a brief paragraph ; and it soberly said, 
" Mr. Percival Trent, as a speaker well known, 
And his friend Mrs. Isabel Lee, out alone 
On the River St. Lawrence last night in a squall, 
Were capsized, and were* both of them drowned." 

That was all. 




XIV. 




HE one reader knelt down in the pitiless 
gloom 
That came over her soul, as if sudden 

a tomb 
Had enveloped her there, and in sylla- 
bles broken 
Besought the All-Father to send her 
some token 
Of love and compassion to show her that still 
She could bow to his power, and suffer his will, 
Though it crush her, because for the best. 

It was loner 
In the dark of her doubt ere she caught the faint song 
Of her faith once again, like a bird that sings low 
In the shadows before all the world is aglow 
With another glad morning. At first she gave up 
To her grief unrestrained. Of the tear-tasting cup 
She drank deep, till its bitterness flooded her hope, 
Overwhelming it. Long as a life did she grope, 
So it seemed, like a person struck blind in the sun, 
Seeing nothing. 

" Lord ! if thy will must be done," 
She could only beseech, " in this terrible way, 
Take me also to thee in thy mercy, I pray. 
I am wicked and weak and unworthy, but hear 
To my pleading, Lord, I implore ! " 



134 GEBALDINE. 

If the ear 
Of the Infinite ever were open to all 
Who in sorrow's unreason thus bitterly call 
For the end, or if, hearing, he answered the cry 
Because merciful only, full many would die 
With their life in the bloom of its purpose. But God 
Is as wise as paternal. He spares not the rod 
Of affliction, however he loves us. Denying 
The answer we seek, he is touched by our crying, 
And gives, in the time of his wiser replying, 
The answer to profit us most. 

Yet we plead 
In the midst of our want for some possible need 
We believe to be ours ; and we hold empty palms 
Up to God, while we cry for particular alms 
At his hand ; and the boon that we seek might be worse 
For us ever than poverty's bitterest curse. 
Very blessed indeed are the poor, when they crave 
What would hinder and hurt, if the All-Father gave 
Without stint to their asking. More blessed are those 
Who in praying remember the All-Father knows 
Of their need even better than they, and bestows 
With a wisdom divine. 

It was pitiful, first, 
To see Geraldine clinging to all that was worst 
In her grief. He was dead, her one lover, — as true 
As the heart that so bitterly mourned him, she knew. 
He was dead, and thus ended her dream. She could never 
Again feel his tender caresses. Forever, 
Till death gave him back, so her sorrowing said, 
She must hunger for love, and be ever unfed. 

By and by — she could hardly have told if a week 

Or a day had been passed in the gloom — she could seek 



GERALDINE. 135 

For disguising of comfort. 

Death gives us some things 
For our absolute holding, that might have found wings, 
And been .wafted beyond us ; and so Death is kind. 
What he gives us, we keep ; and if tears make us blind 
To the gift, and we see but a grave or a bier 
For a little, we come to a vision more clear 
Later on. Then we know that this token of Death 
Is immortal ; that never of this can the breath 
Of regret say with sighing, " change of the years ! " 
That we never shall go with lamentings and tears 
On a wearisome search for the lost. What we hide 
In the peace of the grave will forever abide 
In its promise and grace, in its beauty and truth, 
For the mortal is age. Immortality's youth 
Can know nothing of age, or of change, or decay. 
It has never a morrow of fear. Its to-day 
Of content is eternal. 

A glimmer of light 
Came to Geraldine out of the dark of her night. 
He was dead, her one lover; but thus he was hers 
Beyond shadow of doubting. No dimness that blurs 
Any distance could come between her and her own. 
They should never be separate. Weary and lone 
As her future might seem, he could never be far 
From her life and her love. No distrusting could mar 
Their companionship now evermore. Not a hint 
Of unfaith could be heard through the years. Without stint 
She might give of her heart to his memory fond, 
And forever be glad in the giving beyond 
Any possible shade of regret. Death had set 
The great seal of its silence on lips that were yet 
Full of utterance tender and true, and had stilled 
With its marvellous hush the heart-throbbings that thrilled, 



136 GERALDINE. 

And must thrill to the end, for herself. 

Could it be 
That this woman of women, this Isabel Lee, 
With her heart in her face, and her love in her hand, 
Might have won him away with her witchery bland ? 
Could it be that some passion to flame might have fanned, 
That he never had dreamed of, asleep in his breast ? 
Could it be that his love for herself, in the test 
Of some crucible heat in his life, might have burned 
Into nothingness ? Might he some lesson have learned 
With the wisdom of love making wiser his heart, 
In which previous knowledge had never a part ? 
If a question like these sought reply in her grief, 
In its possible doubt came a certain relief. 
If the sorrow so keen had been sent but to save 
From a sorrow far keener, the hurt that it gave 
Was the touch of a hand hurting only to shield : 
In the pain of its purpose there lingered concealed 
A sweet comfort to gladden and bless. 

The allies 
Of our happiness come to us oft in disguise, 
And we think they are foes. They are not as they seem, 
And we welcome them not to their mission supreme ; 
But we turn in despair from besetting so sore, 
And would flee, if the way were but open before. 
Then we wait, as we must, in the struggles that keep 
All our being in terror, and out of the deep 
Of our peril we call for the succor delayed. 
In some day of clear vision we see there was aid 
Where we knew but assailing ; and then, in surprise, 
With our gaze lifted up to the peaceable skies, 
We behold from our peril and pain a release, 
And are glad and content in the triumph of peace. 



XV. 




* ^ ■£. 



FTER searching in vain the small island 
around, 
Where no hint of the object he sought 

could be found, 
Mr. Trent to the cabin returned. Mrs. 

Lee 
Was awaiting him. 

" Breakfast for you and for me 
Must be late," he remarked but half anxiously. " We 
Are two castaways now, without means of support. 
For a little we promise to be but the sport 
Of such fortune as comes to us." 

Then he explained 
How their boat had been drifted away. It remained 
For them only to wait for some vessel in sight 
Or in hail, to be signalled, or told of their plight, 
When deliverance quickly would come ; and meanwhile 
They must comfort themselves in the comforting smile 
Of the day, that gave sunlight to follow the rain, 
As the morrow will always. 

He smothered the pain 
At his heart, and made merry with laugh and with jest 
As if never a dread of the future oppressed 
Or appalled him. His passion he met with resistance 
Begotten of struggle with self ; and a distance 
Indefinite, infinite, widened and grew 



138 GERALDINK 

Like a desert between them. Instinctive she knew 

He had conquered himself for the time. No regret 

For the past or the present his scrutiny met 

As he gazed in her beautiful face ; but serene 

She looked out on the blue of the sky, and the green 

Of the islands, and moulded her mood to his own. 

So they waited and watched till the morning had grown 

Into mid-day, and patience with waiting had flown. 

They were out of the track of the steamers that plied 

The American channel : it happened, beside, 

That no boat from the Canada ports came along 

Until noon. When it came, on its decks were a throng 

Full of riotous mirth, on a pleasure-trip bent 

To the village some miles from the Bay ; but they lent 

Ready ears to the call for assistance, and sent 

Speedy means of relief. 

" I can land you at Berne," 
Said the captain, who hastened their story to learn, 
When they stood by his side. " You can dine there, and go 
To the Bay when you please. It 's a moderate row 
Of three hours, and the boatmen are plenty." 

And faint 
With their fasting, no longer inclined to complaint, 
They but languidly noted the beauties abounding, 
The merriment over the still water sounding, 
And heeded but little the comment they caused. 
When at length the slow steamer reluctantly paused 
At a rickety wharf, they went gladly ashore, 
While the vessel backed off, and its proper course bore 
Farther on. 

Man is mortal. There 's nothing so tells 
Of mortality, nothing so certain repels 
The romance of our being, the essence and spirit 



GEBALDINE. 139 

Of life, as the hunger that feeds it. Men fear it, 

And flee it ; and yet in their folly they nurse it 

With spices and tonics, till wretched they curse it, 

And die of dyspepsia and doctors. The greed 

Of the animal dominates over the need 

Of the heart and the brain. And all sentiment waits 

Upon hunger; is happy or hurt as the fates 

Of the stomach decree. The day's measure is dinner. 

Man loves like a saint ; but he eats like a sinner, 

Forgetting his love till his appetite flies, 

But remembering well when capacity cries 

To be spared. 

At a quaint little inn they were greeted 
By fare not too fine, when at last they were seated 
Before it. But hunger for diet the meanest 
Gives sauce that is lively, and relish the keenest. 
They ate as if love were a manna untasted 
In wilderness ways ; as if hearts had but hasted 
Their good to forget, or the lingering pain 
Of their sorrowful hurt in a marvellous gain. 
By and by they were ready to leave. Sweetly slept 
The wide reaches of water, unstirred, as they stepped 
In the skiff Mr. Trent had obtained. Like a mirror, 
The river reflected the sky, that seemed nearer 
Than ever to brood o'er the world. As serene 
As a picture of peace was the beautiful scene. 
The mid-afternoon sun, swinging low in its place, 
With an autumn-like glory suffused all the space 
Round about them. The far-away hill-tops were crowned 
As with silver. " Be still ! " said the silence profound 
In suggestiveness sweet to the ear of the soul : 
"For the troubled in heart there is always a goal 
Of content. Mother Nature, with tenderness blind 
To the faults of her children, and ever inclined 



140 GEBALDINE. 

To give gladness for sorrow, invites them to lie 
In her arms while the tumults of being surge by. 
She invites them in quiet and comfort to rest, 
From all weariness free, on her pitying breast ; 
And Jehovah, in loving and tender accord, 
Says, ' Be still ! and discover that I am the Lord. 



> » 



There are times to be silent, — sweet seasons of calm, 

When the soul seems to catch the soft breath of a psalm ; 

When the Infinite lifts up the finite, and bears 

It away from the lowland of troubles and cares ; 

When we rise to a holier being, supernal 

In good and in blessing, with fields ever vernal, 

Where bloom the dear blossoms of beauty that hide 

From our happiness lower, where vistas are wide 

As a world for enchanting our rapturous gaze, 

And we look from our height with delight and amaze. 

It was little they said as they floated away 
Through the silence serene on their course to the Bay. 
If the mood of the scene had not swayed them, the feeling 
Of each must have counselled to partial concealing ; 
But above their own moods was the mood of the hour, 
And it silenced their speech with a mystical power 
That they could not divine. Yet for Percival Trent, 
Though the time was so full of supernal content, 
There was under it all, half unheeded, the ache 
Of a heart that has made the one bitter mistake 
That must ruin its peace evermore. When he rested 
His eyes on her face, he would gladly have breasted 
The billows of fate but to win it and hold it 
His own, to look into it ever, to fold it 
Henceforth in his loving embrace. But a boat's 
Length between them, the limitless ocean that floats 



GEBALBINE. 



Ill 



The great treasure of continents, sundered them far 

By its pitiless waves ; and Hope flung not a spar 

For his seizing, on which he might drift till he held 

Her to him, unresisting, forever. Impelled 

By the currents swift rushing around him, he knew 

He must call to her through the wide reach his " adieu." 

He must float wheresoever the wild waters bore, 

Though no haven he find on a rock-bordered shore. 




The short, slow, lazy strokes of their boatman were swift 
To their longing desire. 'T would have pleased them to 

drift 
In this quiet so tranquil forever. No haste 
Of the world was upon them. To linger, and taste 
Of the lotos-blooms thus, till forgetfulness came 
With its blessing of peace, who could chide them, or blame ? 
The long day was approaching its close when they neared 



142 GEBALDINE. 

The hotel. To a few who there sat, they appeared 

As if raised from the deep ; but before the news spread 

To the many, that these were alive whom as dead 

All were mourning, they both slipped away out of sight. 

From a sleep that was restful and soothing that night 
Into which he had sunk upon reaching his room, 
Percy Trent awoke late, and arose in the gloom 
To look out on the river's broad bosom. The glimmer 
Of moonlight, just gilding the trees with its shimmer 
And sheen, gave a color and glow to the dark ; 
And when, later, the moon had ascended the arc 
Till her beams fell in fulness, as soothing and tender 
As sleep was the glow of her affluent splendor. 
Yet restless and troubled did Trent linger there 
By the casement to gaze on a picture more fair 
Than the day, to be bathed in a glory more rare 
Than the noon's, but with bitterness thrilling his heart. 
Then he sat himself down, and besought the shy art 
Of the poet to soothe. Thus he pencilled 



APART. 

Beyond the sea, beyond the sea, 
In some fair land to dream of thee 
To-night, my darling, would I be ! 

No softer breezes there might blow ; 
No sweeter music there might flow; 
No moonlight there. more tender glow. 

My dreams might find no rarer bliss 
Than here they yield on nights like this, 
Wherein no richness do they miss. 



GEBALDIXE. 



143 



Throughout the glory and the sheen, 
The sunset and the dawn between, 
No fairer picture might be seen. 

On all the evening's quiet rare 

No benediction, as of prayer, 

More sweet and calm might linger there. 

But waking, when the night was done, 
To dawn of day and rise of sun, 
To life and thought again begun, 

Me thinks 't would comfort bring to me 
To know between my love and thee 
"Were reaching leagues and leagues of sea ; 

To feel that distance real and wide 
Were keeping me from thy dear side, 
The sunlight of thy smiles to hide ; 

To know that days must come and go, 
And moons must wax in cycles slow, 
Before thy presence I could know. 







144 GERALDINE. 

But here to-night the moonlight glows, 
And while the breeze so balmy blows, 
I seek in dreams a sweet repose. 

It comes with restfulness and peace ; 
It brings my soul a glad release, 
While all my doubt and tumult cease. 

Yet waking, with the dawn of day, 

My heart will see thee near, and say 

" Good-morning, love ! " and bid thee stay. 

Then, as through distance, thy reply 
Will come, like breathings of a sigh, 
Or accents of a sad good-by. 

" Good-morning, love ! " thou 'It answer me ; 
But more than leagues and leagues of sea 
Will separate my life and thee. 



. ; #~4'?-v 



^h§f 







XVI. 




HE next morning he copied his verses, 
and sent 
Them to Isabel Lee with this message: — 

" I meant 
To take leave of the Islands to-day — 

and of you : 
To depart from your presence without 
an adieu 
Or a word of farewell was my purpose. I 've stayed 
Far too Ions; as it is. But some talk will be made 
On account of our recent survival : I '11 tarry 
A day or two longer, and help you to parry 
The gossiping comment I helped to create. 
Thus I give my excuse for delay to the fate 
That would force me away from your side. 

" When I go, 
It will be to a future of struggles. I know 
What is duty. I know I should say my farewell 
To this month of delight with no feeling to tell 
Of my treason to love so long plighted. Distrust 
Of my manhood may come when I see, as I must, 
To what pitiful weakness I early am brought. 
I may wonder, perhaps, if when I shall have fought 
The hard battle, and won, this poor sham of a life 
Will be worth all the effort, the struggle, and strife. 
Yet I know what is duty, and, knowing, shall walk 

10 



146 GEEALDINE. 

In the line of it steady and brave, though it mock 
Me with bitter denial of strength. For we grope 
To the altitudes highest when being and hope 
Are in deepest eclipse by some fate unforeseen : 
So I comfort myself, with the shadows between 
My blind path and the sunlight shut out. 

" A defender 
Of right should not wave the white flag of surrender 
When wrong his position assails, though the wrong 
Come beguiling to peace with some snatch of a song 
That is pleasant to hear. And the wrong of this passion 
Of mine, that has come in such innocent fashion 
To capture and hold me a captive, must feel 
The quick arming of conscience within me, the leal 
And unyielding resistance of manhood, to meet 
And make combat against it. I know, I repeat, 
What is duty, — my duty, — and, knowing, abide 
By the knowledge. Henceforth in the past I will hide 
What is past ; and my present shall be — what it can. 
For the future — well, being is brief ; and the man 
Who gets through it the soonest in manliest way 
Has the happiest ending. 

" The major might say 
Something very like that, to be sure ; but his quarrel 
With life than my own is more ancient : the moral 
Of which rather pertinent fact is, that he 
Should be reconciled rather, and leave now to me 
The most bitter complaints about being. If I 
Am inclined to turn cynic, and utterance try 
That is doubtful and reckless, remember the stroke 
That is stabbing my soul to its quick. If I spoke 
As I feel, I should shock you with bitterest speech 
That a sane man could utter. But lips that can preach 
Wise philosophy e'er must be careful, and frame 



GERALDINE. 147 

Only language discreet, though the heart be aflame 
Just below." 

To which message she speedily gave 
A complaining, pathetic response : — 

"You would save 
Me the pain of farewell. Let it be so ; and when 
You depart on the morrow, as commoner men 
Hold my hand for a moment in theirs while they speak 
Their adieux, you shall clasp it as if in a week 
You might take it again in your own. And return 
When you will, soon or late, — be it soon! — you shall learn 
How my heart has been keeping its tenderest things 
For your welcome ; shall find with what gladness it brings 
The poor offering up to your altar, and waits 
For some look warm with loving to cheer the hard fates, 
And to kindle the ashes to flame. With your pledge 
To remain as my friend, I can stand on the edge 
Of this wilderness where I am walking, and seem 
To catch glimpses across to the land of my dream ; 
Can forget for a time with what bitterness all 
Who are shut out of Canaan must hunger and call, 
Mid the flesh-pots of Egypt, for good that they miss. 
You are not to deny me your friendship ; and this, 
If it tenderer be than the many could give, 
If it nurture itself at love's fountain, and live 
Thus a life that is warmer than others may see, 
Shall be beauty and brightness and blessing to me. 

" Duty takes you away for a while, so we '11 phrase it. 

And duty — we 're given to foster and praise it ; 

But ugly enough it can be, and as hateful 

As sin. There is nothing in life quite as fateful, 

Or so I believe. I am sick in my soul 

Of its bitter exactions. The costliest toll 



148 



GERALDINE. 



That we yield on the highway of being is paid 

To these, whether we will it or no. "We are laid 

Under tribute, indeed, to a Caesar who claims 

All we have, all the best of our longing and aims ; 

And we give without hope of appeal. Do not wonder 

I put the case plain and with feeling ; for under 

This cruel oppression of duty I cry 

In a poverty wretched for riches gone by, 

And no answer. 

" To-day we shall meet as do those 
In whose soberer veins never surges and glows 
The warm current of passion ; shall trifle with speech 
As if never the heart underneath could beseech 
For a clear revelation in word, as if lips 
Were commissioned, indeed, to put thought in eclipse ; 
Shall be careless, untroubled, and gay with the rest, 
Though a riotous tumult may stir either breast 
To pathetic, unspoken appeal. So we play 
At the mirth that is mockery mad, and obey 




GEEALBINE. 149 

The mad will of the world, that would bid us conceal 
What the will of our hearts would so gladly reveal. 
We shall meet as they meet who have little to gain 
In the meeting, no deep-stirring pleasure the pain 
Of their yesterday's parting to stifle ; no burning 
Unrest through the brief separation ; no yearning 
For glance of an eye, or for touch of a hand, 
Speaking language that love may not misunderstand. 
Let it be so. I 'm used to all bitter restraint 
Upon gladness and warmth that can make the heart faint 
With repression and hunger. No bitterest trial 
Henceforth can be harder than this of denial 
That through the long years I have helplessly known. 
I should say that my heart must be hardened to stone, 
If it were not that now, as I think of you here, 
I can feel its quick throbbings. 

" You may not be near 
In the flesh : in the spirit you cannot go far 
From my side, though you go the world over. We are 
As apart as are darkness and day, though we walk 
Arm in arm a day's journey. So distances mock 
At conditions, and laugh at desire. So the flesh is 
Divorced from the spirit it feebly enmeshes, 
And twain they must be evermore." 

As he read 
Her response, to his feverish longing it said 
More than language the strongest could utter. It throbbed 
With the pain and the passion behind it that robbed 
Her who wrote of her peace. In its silence it spake, 
Even more than its speech, of the wearying ache 
Of her soul. It aroused all his sympathies, strong 
And intense as his love, to the uttermost. Wrong 
As it might be to stay, he was tempted to bide 
The results of a wrong very sweet by her side, 



150 



GEBALDINE. 



And remain ; for she needed him. Hunger like hers 
Can be fed by one bounty alone. It occurs 
To those wealth-giving hearts only, born to make gift 
Of their riches unchecked, to go out from their thrift 
Into want such as this. So he reasoned. He knew 
That his need of her, born but with yesterday, grew 
Every hour. Could he smother it, crush it, and kill it ? 
Is hunger a thing to forget, if you will it ? 
Will want, lean and wolfish, grow comelier there 
If you sit in its presence and fancy it- fair ? 

When they met, half a hundred were hearing her tell 
How the storm came upon them. She pictured it well, 
And in spirit dramatic. How many could guess 
That her language, so fitting, and free to express 




GERALDIXE. . 151 

The alarm of the moment, the peril and stress 
Of the time, was a mantle to cover the feeling- 
Far deeper ? that words thus intense were concealing 
The incident's actual color and glow ? 
That the mood of that night never mortal might know 
Save herself and the man whom she greeted as one 
Of her commonest friends when he joined them ? 

" Well done, 
Good and faithful," the major declared in his light, 
Flippant way. " Though you gave us a horrible fright, 
We forgive you. But don't undertake the heroic 
Again with this cousin of mine. She 's a stoic, 
I grant, and would make not a word of complaint 
To be cast away often, if only some saint 
Of romance would invoke with his kind benediction 
Such company pleasant ; but harrowing fiction 
So very romantic too pungently savors 
Of fact." 

" We will spare you such odious flavors, 
I think, in the future," said Trent. ' ; Mrs, Lee 
Is as patient as any lost Crusoe would see 
His companion in trouble ; jand none could desire 
Better company, should he unwisely aspire 
To the life of a castaway. One such experiment 
Answers, however. There's not enough merriment 
In it to make us demand an encore. 
We are satisfied quite, without crying for more." 

" I supposed you were fond of positions dramatic, 
And might not object to one slightly aquatic," 
Said Mellen, satirical. ** Poets are pardoned 
For tastes rather perilous. Fancies have hardened 
Their sensitive shrinking from facts. The romantic 
In dreams should not render them foolishly frantic 



152 GERALDINE. 

If coming to active reality. Most 
Of the guild, I suspect, would incline to make boast, 
Soon or late, of a thrilling and strange episode 
So uncommon as yours, in an epic or ode." 

" Now I warn you to spare us your comments derisive, 

For once," Mrs. Lee with a manner decisive 

Declared. " You would make of an epic or ballad 

One element only of bitter-sweet salad 

For cynics to feed on, who 'd say grace with sneers, 

And would smile in derision at sentiment's tears. 

You who laugh at poetical things of romance, 

And so boldly charge at them a-tilt with your lance 

Ever drawn, are so many unwise Sancho Panzas, 

Because you could never pen passable stanzas 

Yourselves, and so win the world's plaudit for wages. 

The prose of our being has many dull pages : 

The poetry of it is none too profuse, 

And each incident striking, I think, has its use. 

What this recent adventure of ours may have meant, 

I am puzzled to tell ; but perhaps Mr. Trent 

Will some picture find in it to grace, by and by, 

The one poem each poet ambitious should try 

To embalm himself in." And she laughed. 

" From such banter 
A Pegasus modest would flee at a canter," 
He parried. "Mine dare not remain." And he bowed, 
Self-possessed and amused, to the gathering crowd, 
And betook his way down to the river, his heart 
Strangely stirring within him. The marvellous art 
Of the woman he loved, in so meeting with grace 
Unconfused the demand of the time and the place, 
Made him wonder. No woman beside, he believed, 
Could have faced the surprise of the hour, and deceived 



GERJ.LDIXE. 



153 



ill $-J%# 




All who saw her and heard her so soon into thinking 

The episode fruitless of love. Without shrinking, 

She told all there was of that notable night 

For the curious ear ; and her silence was quite 

Unsuspected concerning the holier things 

He must set himself quick to forget ; for the stings 

Of his conscience were cutting and keen. The beginning 

Of passion despotic was bitter as sinning 

When sin has been drunk to the dregs. Now for him 

There was only a fate full of wretchedness grim, 

And to-morrow must usher it in. He would start 

On the early boat, leaving at five, and depart 

Without word of adieu. And this calm afternoon 



154 



GEBALDINE. 



He would seek for his spirit some balm-laden boon 
In the quiet of channels none other might find, 
Wherein beauty and redolent odor combined, 
And where dreaming, aglow like the blush of a rose, 
Should beguile the unrest of his soul to repose. 




XVII. 




HE pale gold of the west into crimson 

had burned, 
And then faded to purple, before he 

returned. 
He had done more than dream in 

the hours intervening ; 
Had pondered half wisely and well 

on the meaning 
Of passion so futile, so bitter, so rife 
With the seeds of all bitterness, meeting his life 
Where its path appeared gladdest ; had wondered if so 
Into every existence must mad currents flow, 
Making turbulence where should be placidest peace ; 
Had questioned if ever this tumult would cease 
That now troubled his soul ; and had reasoned that being 
Is only a cruel and blind unforeseeing 
Of problems we never may find to be soluble. 
Out with a friend, and inclined to be voluble, 
Trent would have talked in the dubious tones 
Of a man who has battled with fate, and who owns 
To his utter defeat, who is idly indignant 
With life and its lessons. 

The beauties benignant 
Amid which he rowed could not suddenly quiet 
The feverish pulse that so boldly ran riot 
Within him ; no balmiest opiate breezes 



156 GEEALDINE. 

Could bear him at once the glad blessing that eases 
Tormenting thus born of some lingering bane. 
Yet at evening he found himself back, with the pain 
At his heart rather stupefied ; found himself ready 




To meet a gay welcome with nerves that were steady, 
And voice that could syllable badinage gay 
As the gayest, nor once by a tremor betray 
Any deep hidden feeling. 

That night, as the few 
Whom he daily had met, and thus pleasantly knew 
In such casual way, were about to take leave 
Of each other, he mentioned his going. 

"I grieve 
To announce that good-night must be also good-by 
In my own case," he said, "though I leave with a sigh 
Of regret that the summer so nearly is spent." 

" And you go in the morning ? I think, Mr. Trent, 
You should kindly have told us your purpose, that we 



GERALDINE. 157 

Might prepare for the parting," said Isabel Lee 
With surprise well affected, her manner as free 
From all touch of restraint, and as simply well bred, 
As if never a tenderer word had been said 
Between this man and her. " We shall see you again 
Before wjnter ? " she asked ; and as commoner men 
Took the hand she extended, politely he took it 
In formal farewell, and as lightly forsook it, 
Determined to show that he also could cover 
All signs that might hint of his being a lover. 

" Perhaps. I have promised a night in November 

At L , and may call at that time. I remember 

My friends when I can," as if most to forget 
Were his custom exacting. 

Some words of regret 
From the others were spoken in courteous phrase. 

" I may meet you in Rivermet one of these days," 
Said the major, with manner as easy and hearty 
As if the brief sentence were not made a party 
To eager suspicion, and wish to detect 
Through the words, or their carefully noted effect, 
Any reason for Trent's early going. 

Unshaken 
And cool as the major himself, Trent had taken 
His leave of them all in a moment, and stood 
On the ample veranda alone. 

" Very good 
As a piece of lay acting, that was, I admit ; 
But there's something not hinted, I'm sure, under it," 
Major Mellen remarked by and by to the major, 
There being no other man near ; " and I '11 wager 
A box of Havanas that Bell has been flirting 



158 GERALDINE. 

With Trent till he flees her with wound that is hurting 

Him hard. She can stab with most delicate art. 

Can it be that the girl ever had any heart ? 

What a marvellous actress she 'd make ! She had known 

Of his plan for departure, of course, but has shown 

An indifferent ignorance mighty well feigned ; 

And there 's reason, I 'm certain. The man had remained 

Here a fortnight beyond his original date : 

He 'd have tarried a full fortnight longer, if fate 

Had not shown him his danger. He '11 shun Rivermet 

And Miss Geraldine Hope till this fair Juliet 

Be forgotten. And somehow you can't soon forget 

Such a woman," he added, with grimace that spoke 

Of unpleasant remembrance his language awoke. 

" It is well that I quietly published my going," 

Thought Trent, as he looked on the river deep flowing 

Before him, the night-breeze but tenderly kissing it. 

" Were I without the least word to be missing, it 

Might cause remark, and then gossip would say 

There was reason peculiar for going away. 

I suspect that the major, keen-scented, quick-eyed, 

Some hint of the truth has already descried : 

His allusion to Rivermet may have been wide 

Of all purpose he had, except simply to see 

If, in parting thus early from Isabel Lee, 

I should hasten to Geraldine Hope. Having heard 

Our reputed engagement discussed, it occurred 

To him, doubtless, that I have been guilty of treason." 

He felt his face flush in the dark, as if reason 

Were ample for such an unpleasant impression. 

" My self-respect once was my surest possession, 

I fancied : I 'm losing my grip on it fast. 

Can a future of duty deep cover this past 



GEBALDINE. 159 

So it cannot stare up at me pallid and white, 
Like the face of a friend unforgiving, whom quite 
I have killed with keen cruelty ? Can I still live 
My poor future so bravely, that self can forgive 
The sad wrong I have done it, and lift up its head 
As if shame were not living, and trust were not dead ? 
Yonder river runs tranquil and sweet as it glides 
To the sea ; but the ocean's unquenchable tides 
Are but bitterness all. Do I stand on the brink 
Of a sea as resistless and bitter, where sink 
The sweet hopes of these earlier years ? Must I sail 
By the compass of duty, though borne by a gale 
Of fierce passions to harbor unkind ? " 

So he mused 
And he questioned till midnight. His conscience refused 
The short comfort of sleep until well toward the morning. 
He rose in good time for the steamer, and scorning 
The pitiful weakness that so overpowered 
His strength, and compelled him to fly like a coward, 
He walked to the landing, and hastened aboard. 

As he sat on the deck, the glad sunrise restored 
Him in part to himself. He is wanton, in truth 
(Who is farther away from his age than his youth), 
Who can see the dawn flush, the horizon fast redden, 
The color burn into the skies that were leaden, 
The stars slip away into measureless spaces, 
The mountains grow rosy and glad as their faces 
Look sunward and catch the first smile of the day, 
And not thrill with the glory revealed, and not say 
In his heart a thanksgiving. 

The Islands quick faded 
In mellowest distance. The sunlight, unshaded 
By fleck of a cloud, or by film of a mist, 



160 GEBALDINE. 

Lay across the broad river, and lovingly kissed 

Every ripple to laughter and silence. A spell 

Of enchanting content on the voyager fell : 

From this land of the real all gladly he turned 

To a country of dreams where they never have learned 

To forget and be wise. 

And the day wore along. 
When the quivering steamer dashed into the strong, 
Angry sweep of the rapids, Trent roused to the scene, 
And became, till it passed them, a spectator keen. 
Did they typify being, his being ? Must he 
From the currents of peace irresistibly flee 
To such wild buffetings ? Was there nothing before 
Like the beauty behind, where the rush and the roar 
Of this channel tempestuous early should fade 
Into murmurous music, iEolian made 
By the harp of his memory ? 

Eager and swift 
The boat flew to the beckoning billows that lift 
Far above the sharp ledges at anchor beneath, 
And that over a current so treacherous wreathe 
Into sparkle and foam. In the swirl and the sweep 
Of the waves, that so madly and merrily leap, 
They went madly and merrily downward careering, 
No anger of rock or of river once fearing, — 
A spirited race as with water is run ! 

Where the silver St. Francis, asleep in the sun, 

Smiled them welcome unworded, they drifted from sound 

Into silence, — a silence as sweet and profound 

As is midsummer calm, — and from struggle to rest. 

So there come to our lives, when we stand the hard test 

Of the billows that buffet us, reaches so still 

That we drift in delight with the current's calm will, 



GERALDINE. 



161 







-^^ 



And find peace. 

The broad lake of the river was smooth 
As the sky overhead, and its beauty might soothe 
Any trouble of soul. Far away on the left 
The low spire of St. Regis in peacefulness cleft 
The horizon of blue ; far away to the right 
The blue hills of the south faintly bounded the sight ; 
And before them the river's magnificence swept, 
As the steamer straight onward her patient way kept, 
To the narrower channels below. Here and there 
A stray water-fowl, lazily beating the air, 4t 

Was the only suggestion of life beyond reach 
Of the vessel itself : if the silence had speech, 
It was only an echo of yesterday's life, 
Or it hinted, mayhap, of some possible strife 
Yet to be. 

As the sun was fast sinking, its flame 
Of white heat into rosy red burning, they came 

11 



162 . GEBALDINE. 

To the river's superlative charm, — the La Chine. 

It is just a rnad passion of waters between 

Two long levels of tranquil repose. The St. Lawrence 

Here dashes the majesty grand of its torrents 

Swift down the decline ; here it hurls them in wrath 

High above the rough ledges that torture its path ; 

Here it ripples and laughs, here it seethes and it surges, 

As on to St. Peter's sweet quiet it urges 

Its dangerous way ; here it dances and sings ; 

Here it pours and it roars, and its wild current flings 

Into spray ; here, with grandeur majestic, it sweeps 

O'er its breakers, and smooth and unbroken it leaps 

From the crest of the low cataract ; here it beats 

Into fury along the sharp headlands, retreats 

From its futile attack with the thunder of hate, 

And renews it again ; here it flies to the fate 

That awaits it, with passionate force ; here it lingers 

As if it were clasping compassionate fingers 

In loving farewell ; here it hurries and flashes, 

And scurries and gleams, and in mad columns crashes 

Against the high rocks that defy it insultingly ; 

Here it springs over the ledges exultingly, 

Breaks into foam, and goes merrily drifting 

And lifting, and leaping and plunging, and shifting 

From color to color, as if there were dyes 

Of all marvellous tints where it flashes and flies ; 

Here it lifts the stout prow that encounters it, sways it 

With terribly masterful will that betrays it 

Almost to disaster and death ; here you feel 

A quick shiver of fear course along the boat's keel, 

Till she struggles with pain like a person, and shudders 

With live apprehension, and writhes in her rudder's 

Strong hold, and leaps forward at length as if greeting 

Her moment of mastery, heart and soul beating 



GERALDINE. 163 

With martyrlike purpose heroic : for here 

She may sail with the sky bending over her clear 

As a crystal, the winds in Eurocly don's caves 

All asleep, and yet meet as wild tempest as raves 

When the demon of storm his black anger has hurled 

O'er the waters, and God has forgotten the world. 

As he stood on the bow of the steamer, Trent saw 
The smooth waters uplift, as if swept by a flaw 
Of some wind that he felt not. A rift it appeared 
At the first ; but as to it they steadily neared, 
It grew angry and strong as the surf of the ocean : 
He saw the wild channels in wilder commotion, 
And heard their low thunder, more sullen and loud, 
Like a warning to venture no farther. The crowd 
Gathered round him, alert and intent. At the wheel, 
The grim face of their pilot, with muscles of steel 
Quick to answer command, was immovably set, 
Looking into the torrent beyond. As they met 
The first break of the water, a breathless suspense 
Came upon them, a fear that no human defence 
Could avail against madness like this. 

Through the leaping 
And boiling and thundering waves they went sweeping 
And surging, a sense as of rapidly sinking 
Within them, a tardy and cowardly shrinking 
From fury still madder to come. And yet faster 
They swept through this turbulent hell of disaster, 
Where ruin and wreck seem forever at home. 
Through the billows of green and the breakers of foam, 
Sinking down with a tremor and thrill o'er the ledges 
Beneath, and careening far over the edges 
Of cataracts highest, the stout vessel tossed 
Like a shell in the surf, its swift course often crossed 



164 GERALDINE. 

By the outjutting rocks that so cruelly waited 
To crush it, but always as happily fated 
To shun its hard foes, and each moment confounded 
By terrors yet greater. 

The thunders resounded 
In mightier music majestic ; the leap 
Of the waters was wilder and fiercer ; the sweep 
Of their desperate will conquered being and breath 
As the gasp of the dying is conquered by death. 
Still the pilot peered out on the tempest before, 
Undismayed by its terrible tumult and roar, 
And the captain stood silent and stern at his bells, 
With a look as intense as if tolling farewells. 
'Twas a mad, irresistible race with the devils 
Of furious flood, where their turbulent revels 
Are maddest, — a race to remember as glorious, 
Once you have won it, and panting, victorious, 
Through its wild pleasure and peril at last 
To the tortuous channel below you have passed, 
And you know by the quieter waters, serene 
As the sunset, you safely have run the La Chine. 



XVIII. 

RENT remained for a day, but to pay 
the brief call 
Of a tourist in passing, at gray Mon- 
treal ; 
Then uneasy, uncertain, he walked the 

boat's deck 
That should land him next morning at 
quainter Quebec. 
Until late in the evening he paced up and down, 
Looking back on the walls of the vanishing town, 
Looking out on the opposite islands low lying 
In beauty of green, on the sky that was dyeing 
Itself in the crimson and scarlet and gold 





166 GERALDINE. 

Of the sunset, with eyes half indifferent. Cold 
To the color that warmed all about him, and glowed 
The glad heart like a dream of the tropics, he rode 
Through the lingering twilight, and into the dark. 
The dim shores faded out. A late fisherman's bark 
Came in call, and stole by like a ghost, with its sails 
Wing-and-wing, as if wooing the slumbering gales. 
Some hilarious raftsman, afar out of sight, 
Let his lusty-lunged laughter float out on the night 
Till it frightened the echoes. The passengers aft 
Over gossip and story occasional laughed, 
Till Trent listened in positive pain. He was lonely, 
And longing, and heartsick, as they can be only 
Who taste the one pleasure of life but to miss it, 
Who pine for the face of a friend, when to kiss it 
Would open the windows of heaven. 

He went in 
The deserted saloon, compensation to win 
For his loneliness there, if he could. Sitting down 
To the open piano, he hastened to drown 
His regrets and unrest in its magical flow. 
To his delicate touch it responded in low, 
Sympathetic sonatas, that lingered and thrilled 
On the sensitive ear, or in melodies filled 
With the wordless compassion of song. So he played 
As the mood was upon him. Some quiet ones made 
Their way in from the deck, and close up to his side ; 
But he heeded them not — or his manner belied 
Any heeding. Enrapt in the harmonies rare, 
He could easy forget every trouble and care, 
All the common surroundings of time and of place. 
Through the sweetness of song, some enrapturing grace 
Breathed upon him its witchery soft, till he knew 
Neither doubt, nor misgiving, nor dread. Thus he grew 



GEBALDINE. 167 

To be soberly glad. Thus he sang, ere he ceased, 
In a strain that the gladness of singing increased, 
Of a lesson he learned from 



THE LIGHT IN THE EAST. 

I saw the day fade into darkness ; 

I saw the glow shade into gloom ; 
And I felt a great dread in my soul as I said, 

" Can the night bring a bud to its bloom ? 
Can there ever be born a bright morrow 

Of sorrowful dark such as this? 
Will the sun ever shine with its glory divine, 

And the beauty and blessing I miss ? " 

I sat in my doubt half despairing; 

I knew not the way I should grope : 
So I wondered and wept by my hope as it slept, 

And I feared it the death of my hope. 
More deep was the darkness, and denser 

The gloom that enveloped me there ; 
And my faith grew so weak, it no longer could speak 

The sweet syllables shaping a prayer. 

O Father, forbearing and tender, 

Have mercy on souls that are dumb ! 
To their silence reply through the dark, " It is I ! " 

As in comforting love thou dost come. 
The need may be deepest that cries not 

For lack of strong agony's word : 
O Father, come near with thy comfort and cheer, 

And give answer as if thou hadst heard! 

A bird singing low in the silence 

Brought healing for hurting to me : 
For I saw, looking far by the horizon bar, 



168 GERALDINE. 

What the sons of men ever may see, — 
The gloom of the midnight departing; 

The day, from its bondage released, 
Stealing up through the space, with a light on its face, - — 

The glad, wonderful light in the east. 

" The night of my vigil shall vanish," 

I sang with the song of the bird ; 
" For the sun never set on a yesterday yet, 

To rise on a morrow deferred. 
The dawn is as sure as the darkness, 

The pledge is as true as the boon ; 
For the light in the east never failed us, nor ceased 

To make certain the morning and noon." 

As he sang in a barytone mellow and trained, 

With a feeling and thrill that were deeper than feigned, 

Many lingered and listened, and finally sighed, 

That a song so beguiling and glad should have died 

Into silence so soon. 

He arose and went out. 
He had sung himself back into peace from the doubt 
He had wrestled with so through the days. It might be 
That the morrow would wound him afresh : he was free 
From all weary besetments to-night. He could rest 
In the darkness untroubled by dread, and possessed 
By no fear for the end. 

The next morning the height 
Of historic Cape Diamond first greeted his sight, 
And above the gray walls of the citadel hung 
The tricolor of Britain. A battle-ship swung 
By its anchor, asleep in the harbor below. 
The bright roofs of the city took dazzle and glow 
From the sun but just risen. Without haze, or the fleck 
Of a cloud, the sky shone upon silent Quebec. 



GEBALDINE. 



169 



When the steamer swung round in the channel, and swept 
With some bustle and stir to her landing, he stepped 
From the New to the Old ; for the centuries waited 
Here once, and since then have been always belated. 
As up to the gate from the river you climb, 
You go back a long cycle or two into time ; 




You see round you the life, and the works, and the ways 

Of the world in its ruder and ruddier days, 

When the color of being so readily run 

To the surface, that battle and pillage were done 

For the sake of the doing ; when war was a thing 

To be studied and learned for the fame it should bring ; 

When the shedding of blood was a part of Christianity, 

Practised and preached for the good of humanity. 



170 GEBALDINE. 

Please don't infer that they pillage and plunder 
To-day in the sleepy old town ; do not wonder 
If Trent beheld murder and rapine and lust 
As in wars mediasval, where settles the dust 
Of the past undisturbed on a present too quiet 
To start a more valiant crusade than a riot. 
I made, it may be, an unfortunate reference, 
Too comprehensive and broad, out of deference 
Only, in fact, to the city's antiquity. 
History simply concedes the iniquity 
To it, 'tis true, of repelling long sieges, 
Defending the onset of loyalty's lieges, 
Withstanding the shock of the enemy's hosts, 
And compelled to see carnage unsought. 

But the ghosts 
Of dead heroes yet walk the high battlements round it ; 
Red fame has a place where men sought it and found it ; 
Still grim and defiant re-echo the guns 
That in silence have slept through a century's suns ; 
In the cry of the sentry a dim challenge calls 
Out of long-buried lips from the citadel walls ; 
The wild music of musketry breaks on the air, 
Where the garner is death for the gallant who dare ; 
And above all the present's calm quietude reigns 
The fierce tumult of strife upon Abraham's Plains. 

Through the quaint, crooked city our friend made his way, 

Searching out the things quaintest by night and by day ; 

Walking over the battle-field hard by the town ; 

From the parapets airy and bold, looking down ; 

Looking on at the garrison's dashing parade ; 

Idly watching the pride and the fashion displayed 

On the terrace ; or bowling right merrily on, 

Through the Gate of St. Charles or the Gate of St. John, 



GEBALDINE. 171 

In a rocking caleche, to the country that sleeps 
Beyond city and suburb at peace, or where leaps 
Montmorenci in beautiful haste to be wed 
With the wooing St. Lawrence. The life that he led 
For a week was the life of a dreamer unstirred 
By the impulse of action. He languidly heard 
The faint callings of duty, and answered them not. 
In the midst of such sleepy surroundings, forgot 
Was the wide-awake being and doing so near 
In his future. The lotos-blooms redolent here 
He would press to his lips, and forget. 

But he failed 
In forgetting. Regret his good purpose assailed, 
And wherever he went he was haunted by thought 
Of what had been and must be. His dreams ever caught 
The sweet flavor of emerald islands, the sheen 
Of the waves as they twain had long drifted between 
In those days of delight, and his sweetest repose 
Was a blessed remembrance. 

Most happy are those 
Who have only remembrances blessed ! who turn 
From no memories bitter, with feelings that burn 
Like a fire in the breast ! They have come to the garden 
Of paradise so without knowing it. Pardon 
For sins of the past cannot blesseder be 
Than in granting forgetfulness certain and free 
Of the sin put away, that henceforth it may never 
Stand ghostly and grim by the present's endeavor, 
And mock it, and make it afraid. 

Though the time 
Was so full of a dreamy content, to the rhyme 
Of each day a sad music was set, like a moan 
Amid mellowest laughter, — a low undertone, 
Never ceasing, half heeded, half heard, but existent, 



172 GEBALDINE. 

And paining the ear of the soul with persistent 
Continuance. Walk where he would, he could hear 
The low pulsing of pain far away, and yet near 
As the conscience within. He could never forget 
To the full of forgetting, so long as Regret 
Was his daily companion, rose with him at dawn, 
And sat with him at eve when the twilight was gone 
Till he bade her a weary good-night. 

At the end 
Of a week he took up delayed duty, and penned 
A long letter to Geraldine Hope. If it read 
Like his former epistles, but little it said 
Of the ardent affection of lovers, implying 
What might have been written, in no wise denying 
By evident lack what he often had told. 
While he wrote it, in fact, if the love had grown cold 
That he felt for her once, it was only, it seemed 
To himself, by comparison. Passion undreamed 
In its mastery, coming unheralded quite, 
Had not hidden this older love out of his sight 
As a thing very worthful and sweet. 

Are degrees 
With the heart so impossible ever ? Are these 
Who have burned the hot flame of fierce passion's desire 
To its ashes, no more to be warmed by the fire 
Of some calm-glowing feeling ? Believe it who will. 
You may sit by the blaze of your passion, and thrill 
With quick grief as it flickers, and falters, and dies; 
But some day from the embers new color may rise 
Into glowing, and gladden you. Grieving is brief, 
Or the sum of this being were simply a grief. 




XIX. 

Y DEAR GERALDINE, — 

" Pardon unwonted delay," 
So his letter began, " in my writing. 

Don't play 
At the brief indignation you never 
5* must feel 

At my gravest shortcomings, nor try to conceal 
The sweet fact that long silence has new revelation 
Of need. I 've been dreaming, and lacked animation 
For more. That 's the only excuse I can render. 
There's something that lurks in the crystalline splendor 
Of summer days here that I cannot explain ; 
It has proved, in my case, a most excellent bane 
For the poison of purpose to do. I have drifted 
From morning to night like the veriest gifted 
Do-nothing of genius, — my only ambition 
To see, and to feel, and be glad. If the mission 
Of sunshine were ever performed as a healing 
And free soporific, in balminess stealing 
Through heart and through brain, and so lifting the weight 
Of hard duty and care, it is here. How the late 
Mellow twilights beguile to repose ! How the calm 
Of each morning seems pressing some opiate balm 
On the eyelids ! How earth in a beautiful swoon 
Seems to lie through the glow of each brief afternoon ! 
How the far-away mountains are hallowed with rest, 



174 GERALDINE. 

As if truly the summits of God ! How the west 
Into marvellous color and majesty glows, 
As the sun to his morrow magnificent goes 
Through a gateway of gold ! 

" You may say, if you choose, 
I am florid in feeling. I never shall lose 
Out of memory's life the week's rest I have known 
Here in quiet Quebec. When I weary am grown 
Amid duties to come, I shall dreamily drift 
Out of bustle and crowd, to the holiday gift 
A kind fortune has granted to have and to keep, 
And be sweetly refreshed as if gladdened by sleep. 

" Having been the whole round of the places historical 

Here, I might now, in a style paregorical 

(Sleepy, you know, like the air of the town), 

And with guide-pages handy, proceed to put down 

All the facts and the figures important. But no ! 

You shall wait yet a year, and come with me, and grow 

Even wiser than I am concerning the place. 

Do I see a glad flush stealing over your face 

At the prospect so pleasant ? I like the half-blush 

That you wear at odd times, when you say I must hush 

Some fond nonsense or other. You 're prettiest then. 

Do not show the same blush to less fortunate men, 

Lest they en\y me more ! 

" As for history here — 
In the magical glow of to-day's atmosphere 
There is little but being historic. And yet, 
If I lounge on the Terrace when Fashion has set 
Its gay current there soon, I shall see as much pride 
As disports itself now on the popular side 
Of Broadway, New York, in this day of our Lord 
Eighteen hundred and blank. If I greatly abhorred 



GERALDINE. 



175 




The Dame Fashion, I 'd say with some bitterness mild, 
She was wrinkled and gray, even history's child ; 
And I 'd point you, in proof, to that notable twain 
Who began their existence in clothes rather plain, 
And became quite ashamed to be seen. But I '11 grant 
That the pride which so gayly would flutter and flaunt 
The fine trappings of dress is a modernized thing, 
And that over the picture the promenades fling 
A bright hue of the present, to lessen and lighten 
The half-sombre tint of the past, and to heighten 
The picturesque whole. 

" Yet you feel, when you stand 
On the parapet yonder, as though in a land 



176 GERALDINE. 

Of dim yesterdays fled ; and you walk the quaint street 

As if certain some knight mediaeval to meet ; 

And you listen to Mass in the Jesuit piles 

Of the priests, as if monks moved about in the aisles 

From the far Middle Ages. 

" Poor priest-ridden people ! 
If only there lifted some truth-telling steeple 
To point the true way they must go ! But the spire 
Of the Jesuit seldom points heavenward higher 
Than head of the prelate or priest ; and the soul 
Of the dead or the dying must pay proper toll, 
Or go seeking its paradise long. In this dreary 
Sahara of doubt the one spot that is cheery 
And vernal alone is the Virgin. Dear Mother 
Of Christ! Because each, in believing, his brother 
Becomes, we may hallow her thus with our love 
As the mother of all ; but before and above 
The sweet mother Madonna forever is Christ ; 
And whoever from worshipping him is enticed 
To a less adoration, while walking the way 
Of a faith without fruitage, must penalty pay, 
And not penance. Some paintings a worthy grace give 
To the Virgin ; but Christ as an infant must live 
In the arms of the mother Madonna, or hang 
From the cross where he died with the crucifix pang 
On his face, as the Jesuits have it, instead 
Of ascending on high, from his place with the dead, 
And remaining a Saviour for all, with no need 
Of a priest to stand up, and with him intercede 
For the seeking and penitent. 

" Battle-fields teach 
Many lessons. The monuments on them may preach 
A wise gospel that calls for no shedding of gore. 
On the plains where the men of Montcalm fled before 



GERALDINE. 



177 



The wild charge of their foes, is the legend, ' Here died 

Wolfe victorious.' Life is a battle-field wide, 

And we fight for the right or the wrong till the end. 

I have wondered how many who fall, my dear friend, 

Are the victors, how many go down to defeat, 

Never gaining the victory certain and sweet, 

But discouraged, disheartened, dismayed. Marble shaft 

Never rises above them ; no spring where they quaffed 

The last cup of refreshing is 

pointed to those 
Who still linger, and face the 

fierce onset of foes 
That the world never sees ; but 

they slumber unsung, 
And are silent forever. God 

pity the tongue 
That prays feebly for help from 

defeat at the last, 
When it ought to be singing 

thanksgiving, as fast 
It sinks down into silence ! I 

think it were blest 
Thus to die like this soldier of 

fortune, who pressed 
To his lips a clear draught from 

the spring, and then went 
Into rest, let us hope, with a 
warrior's content, 
Having won. But he won as must all, having fought 
Like a faithful and true knight of God. Had he sought 
Cheaper victory, doubtless defeat would have robbed 
Him of glory and fame. Never faithfulness throbbed 
Out of life into death without recompense just, 
Though it come when the heart is but ashes and dust. 

12 




178 GEBALBINE. 

" But I '11 spare you philosophy further. Please credit 
This much to the mood of my pen, that but led it 
Astray. 

" I have lingered here longer than most 
Of the sight-seers do, who 'from pillar to post' 
Hurry on as if fevered with, haste. By and by, 
In the sweetest of leisure indeed, you and I 
Will thus tarry untroubled, unhurried, together, 
And paradise find in this marvellous weather. 
To-morrow I leave for the Saguenay, — far 
Down the river, and up where the solitudes are. 
I have made Montmorenci a visit to-day 
For the last, and shall list to the exquisite play 
Of its murmurous music no more, lest I listen 
In dreams. Where its waters gleam ever and glisten, 
Like showers of pearls in the sun, I have laid 
Half the day full of dreamy delight. The cascade 
Partly faces the town ; but a leisure hour's ride 
Down the river's left bank, yet unseen from the side, 
You approach it. In front, between it and the stream 
It is leaping to meet, is the vision supreme 
Of its beauty* A green, grassy point there invites you 
To linger and gaze, and with gazing delights you ; 
For yonder the play of the waters is sweet 
As the sunlight that silvers the foam at your feet ; 
Their loud thunder has lost all its resonant ring, 
And in murmurs JEolian softly they sing 
Through the distance between ; like white gossamer lace 
They droop down the precipitous deep, with the grace 
Of a bridal veil gleaming with gems. You could linger 
In rapt fascination forever, the finger 
Of silence laid soft on your lips, that you might 
Ne'er attempt the expression in words of delight 
Inexpressible. 



GERALDINE. 



179 



"Yonder, with beautiful smile, 
The St. Lawrence sweeps onward, and kisses the Isle 
Of Orleans like a lover, and fondly embraces it ; 
Turn half around from the falls, and one faces it, — 
River of silver and island of green, 
A pure emerald set in a circlet of sheen, 
A fair picture of peace as man ever has seen. 
On the opposite side are the cottages low 
Of the poor habitans, an irregular row, 
Running nigh to the dim water-line ; far beyond, 
In the yet dimmer distance, the sky bending fond 
To caress them, the mountain-tops blend with the blue, 
And your vision has bounded the reach of the view. 
Turn again to the right and the west, and you gaze 
On the slumbering city, its roofs all ablaze 




180 GEBALDINE. 

In the sunshine, and flooding its soberer grays 

With a tropical glory ; its batteries, grim 

And defiant as hate, become mellow and dim 

In the distance ; its rugged and angular steeps 

Sloping gently and soft to the river that sleeps 

At their base; and above, the red cross of St. George 

From the citadel flung. 

" I have sat by the gorge 
Which the point overlooks, so enraptured and charmed 
By the scene, that my driver no doubt was alarmed 
For his fare, apprehensive that I would attempt 
To slip off as a suicide, going exempt 
From the fees common visitors pay. As I stayed 
There to-day, and the fall sweeter melodies played 
In farewell, I wrote thus of 

THE SUNNY CASCADE. 

Fair Montmorenci gleaming goes 

Adown its dim defiles : 
In nooks no human vision knows, 
Its tricksy current laughing flows, 

Flash out its silver smiles. 

Far up amid dim mountain dells, 
It drinks from crystal springs : 

Of cooling rills and mountain wells 

It gayly sips, and gladly tells, 
As free it leaps and sings. 

It lingers long in quiet grots 

Where bending birches weep : 
Where bloom the blue forget-me-nots 
Along the warm and sunny spots, 

It sings itself to sleep. 



GERALDINE. 181 



It wakes to laugh at foaming rift, 

And flies with merry glee 
Adown the swirling rapid swift, 
Where mossy walls in wonder lift 
Their whitening heads to see. 



It sinks to rest by pleasant shades 

Where meadow-reaches run, 
Or gleams coquettish through the glades 
Where long it mirrored dusky maids 

Who dusky warriors won. 

And rousing soon to rougher ways, 

It sports through rocky fen, 
Where bright the sunlight streams and plays 
Within the lonely woodland maze, 

And longs for haunts of men. 

Then down the wider steep it flies 

With eager, hastening feet, 
And sweet complaint for smiling skies, 
To leap with laughter and surprise, 

And glad its wooer greet. 

Serene the broad St. Lawrence flows, 

Yet winning with its smiles ; 
And Montmorenci gleaming goes 
In joy to wed its sweet repose 

Where bliss alone beguiles. 

Forever down its dizzy height 

The cascade sunny leaps, 
Its waters robed in angel white, 
Its song an anthem of delight 

From heaven's own azure deeps. 



182 GEEALDINE. 

Its pearly spray, to diamonds kissed, 

Plays truant with the breeze; 
And on it borne as lightest mist, 
In flush of gold and amethyst, 

It seeks the sunset seas. 

The fleecy foam in beauty falls 

To hide the bare abyss ; 
From out its dripping cavern-halls 
A witching Undine lauohino- calls 

To win her lover's kiss. 

And ever on in sportive race 

Fair Montmorenci runs ; 
Forever changing all the grace 
That wimples on its smiling face, 

Yet changeless as the sun's. 

" I must bid you adieu till each other we see, 
When my roving vacation has gone, vis-a-vis." 
And he signed himself brief, in a style that was meant 
To seem loving as ever, 

" Your 

" Percival Trent." 




XX. 




AJOR MELLEN had business or pleas- 
ure again, 
Or it may have been both, down at 

Rivermet, when 
He returned from his summer's diver- 
sion. He made 
A long call upon Geraldine Hope, and 
he played 

In the crudest way with her peace. She acquitted 
Him, true, of deliberate wish that admitted 
Such torture to her : she could scarce have believed 
That with purpose prepense he would idly have grieved 
Her as now. She accepted the pain that he gave 
With a patient acceptance, submissive, and brave. 
And withal she was glad that he came ; for he brought 
A great blessing of comfort at first ; and it caught 
Her up, willing and weak, in the shock of its flow, 
Overcoming her quite. 

" I can never forego 
Paying tribute to friendship as pleasant as yours," 
He remarked, " and the business is kind that insures 
Opportunity easy. I 'm barely returned 
From the River St. Lawrence, all blistered and burned 
By the sun, as you see. We have had a month's leisuring, 
Filled running over with vagabond pleasuring, 



184 GEBALDINE. 

Sandwiched with some of gay fashion's formalities, 
Spiced with a few of flirtation's dualities. 
Jolliest company, too, that I ever 
Was out with, and rather uncommonly clever." 

" You must have been fortunate, major," she said 
As he paused, though she felt that the color had fled 
From her face. 

" Well, I was : it 's my normal condition, 
You know," and he laughed, as if every ambition 
He knew had been gratified. ".When a man chooses 
To waste a few weeks doing nothing, he loses 
His temper as well as his time, if the rest 
Who should aid him in laudable ways are possessed 
Of the devils of social discomfort. They tear 
Very many, Miss Hope, I am willing to swear 
On the word of a man who has studied them well : 
They are devils of which there 's no record to tell 
Out of whom or of what they were cast. It may be 
They went down with the swine to their bath in the sea, 
And escaped — with their piggish propensities, grunting 
At every experience, always affronting 
Your pleasure and patience. There can't be a place 
That is better for lifting the mask from the face 
Of a character rude than half-roughing it where 
The good-humor and fun are a part of the fare. 
There were none in our set with whom grumbling was chronic ; 
No one of us bored all the rest with Byronic 
Quotations and sentiments ; nobody flung 
A wet blanket of sneers from the loom of his tongue 
Till he chilled the whole company ; all were discreet 
And good-natured, forbearing and wise, as is meet 
For a party of idlers like ours. Even I 
In deportment, I fancy, was rated as high 



GEBALDINE. 185 

As the others — unless it were Trent." 

As he named 
Her beloved, it seemed he had purposely aimed 
A keen arrow to enter her bosom. She gasped 
As if panting for air, and convulsively clasped 
Her hands close in unheeded beseeching. 

"He carried 
The honors off easy — or would had he tarried 
As long as the rest. Your good fellows who sing. 
And who play, and make speeches, and do everything 
As if that were their forte, have the best of us noodles 
Who count with the ladies about as their poodles, — 
Poor curs, our one talent the meek one of following, 
Led by a string. When I see women swallowing 
Music like Trent's, with their hearts in their faces, 
As ready to yield him their love and embraces 
As even to listen and praise, I am vexed 
That with dower so meagre I ever was sexed 
With the males. It 's discouraging, is n't it ? " 

Waiting 
No answer, not stayed by the half-hesitating 
Appeal that spoke out of her face, he asserted : 
" If ever coquettes have outrageously flirted 
With men, it is men of his fortunate class. 
The less charming ones they are content to let pass 
In the main, as not worthy their wickedest wiles, 
And we get what I call their superfluous smiles. 
We are lucky, perhaps, after all, in not knowing 
The sharpest effects of their skill, and in going 
Unscathed when the cleverer fellows are showing 
Sore injury." 

White to her lips, and in tones 
That were trembling, and swift might have sunk into moans, 
She besought revelation of mystery hinted 



186 GERALDINE. 

At thus in his words. 

"'The Palladium ' printed 
A paragraph, saying your friends had been drowned." 

" So I 've heard. They were caught in a storm, and we found 
Their boat empty and broken the following day, 
After searching for hours. The quick journalist's way 
Was to telegraph promptly their death. When they came 
Back alive, as they did, they were rather to blame 
For denying a fact: so the newspaper said 
Nothing of it, and silently left them for dead." 

The hard ring of his sentence sarcastic was much 

Like a dash of cool water when fainting : its touch 

Gave her strength. Yet her heart appeared swelling to burst, 

And her lips were as dry as if parching with thirst ; 

And a great dizziness overcame her so nearly, 

She whispered a prayer. 

" Percy Trent's case was clearly 
A desperate one after that. So romantic 
Conditions must plunge a man in the Atlantic 
Of love beyond rescue. He fled from his fate 
Like the coward all men are with flirts. I should hate 
To be hit in the heart as he 's been ; for these poets 
Take hard any hurt of that kind, though I know it's 
Quick over with often. He '11 write better verse 
After this ; and his life will not be any worse 
For the blow she has dealt him." 

"You think Mrs. Lee 
Is unmerciful then ? " 

" Yes. I know her to be 
A coquette of the wickedest, once she attempts 
Any conquest in earnest. She kindly exempts 
From her efforts all average men, for they sicken 



GERALDIXE. 



187 



Her soon ; but a man of some genius can quicken 
The strongest allurements within her. She gives 
Herself cheerfully over to winning him ; lives 
In the pleasure she finds in her growing success ; 
Leads him on in the quietest fashion, with less 




Of apparent desire than indifference ; wins 
All his worship, and — stabs him." 

"And wickedly sins 
Against womanhood," warmly she answered him, throbbing 
Her heart through her speech. " There can never be robbing 
More wanton than takes of the treasure of life 
For the taking, then presses keen Cruelty's knife 
To the vitals, and leaves it." 

" The stab never reaches 
So deep as that quite, and the victim beseeches 



188 . GEBALBINE. 

A cure from some sister of mercy. The curate 

Her ministry finishes. All must endure it, — 

The wound and the treatment, I mean." And he sneered 

In his cynical fashion. 

She trembled, and feared 
To reply. 

"As for Trent," he continued, sarcastic 
Yet earnest, " his love, I believe, is elastic 
Enough to rebound from the bitterest strain. 
He will weaken awhile with the shock and the pain ; 
But in time he will marry that sister of mercy, 
Who never may dream that the poems her Percy 
Produces hereafter take color and tone 
From a love that was earlier born than her own. 
It 's the way of the world. When with kisses we wed, 
We have stood by the grave of some passion, and shed 
The hot tears of forgetting." 

"You speak for the men, 
It may be ; " and she rallied indignantly then. 
" Men may love and forget : women love till they die." 

" Then they stand at the altar, I fear, with a lie 

On their lips many times," he responded. " The chances 

Don't favor fulfilment of early romances. 

We're creatures of fate, or of hard circumstances 

That govern us, come between us and the kindest 

Conditions of being, and lead in the blindest 

Of paths. Women do with their love as they must ; 

And the truest of faith, the sublimest of trust, 

Cannot yield the full fruitage of love absolutely 

And ever. A woman may love when she mutely 

Must look her farewell. If she never forgets, 

She pays penalty twice, in her love and regrets, 

For the sex that compels her to silence. She ought 



GEEALDINE. 189 

To have recompense rare for a fact that is fraught 
With unfairness the greatest, — the fact that avers 
A man's freedom of speech, and then robs her of hers. 
But suppose she were granted like freedom of voice, 
It might chance that she make an unfortunate choice, 
And win only refusal, and go ' disappointed 
Away, as the men do, you know. It's disjointed 
And cruel and wrong, if the woman must cling- 
To her love when it comes to be only a sting 
And a weariness to her." 

He spoke with a ban 
On his flippant expression, that frequently ran 
To severity reckless. If ever sincere 
And believing, he seemed to be now. 

" You appear 
Full of sympathy, major, for women who fail 
To find sweetness in loving," she said ; and her pale 
Cheeks were glowing with color returned. " You would make 
Of their love but a fancy short-lived, for the sake 
Of in charity sparing them pain. You contend 
That love blooms like an annual, ready to lend 
Of its fragrance to him who will water it well 
When its winter of grief has gone by. You compel 
A belief that we love as we like, and our fancies 
Are cherished or dropped as the fortunate chances 
Of being direct. But I cannot accept 
Such a theory. Granted that women have wept 
Bitter tears, and then wiped them away, and then carried 
A smile for their friends, — even say that they married, 
And grew into matrons with faces like saints 
For the happy light in them, and made no complaints 
Of the past, — I believe they remembered, and knew 
That they never could wholly forget, and were true 
To the law of their natures. God made us to love ; 



190 GERALDINE. 

And we love for a purpose beyond and above 
The mere loving. Some discipline comes to us, up 
From the dregs that are found in the bitterest cup, 
That we never should learn, did we drink and forget." 

She was smiling, with tears in her eyes, that she let 
Slip away unawares down her beautiful cheeks, 
And the major observed them. 

" Who foolishly seeks 
To convince any woman," he said, " must repent 
And be silent, or soon be convinced. I 'm content 
To admit you the argument, since you appeal 
To economies only your faith can reveal, 
And my questioning doubts. Divine purposes blind 
Me wherever I turn. Where they seem to you kind, 
They appear to me cruel. One loves and is glad, 
And another goes out from her paradise sad, 
And in sorrow she ought to forget ; and you say 
She must always remember, for this is the way 
That her Maker has ordered. He brings her, you think, 
A deep draught the most bitter, and bids her to drink ; 
And she never may sweet enough happily sip 
To remove the bad taste that is left on her lip. 
It is better to drink and forget, as men do 
Who sip kisses of comfort, devotedly woo 
Where 'tis easy to win, and make matches at last 
For the happy-faced matrons who cling to their past 
Without evident grieving." 

His words had the ring 
Of fine irony in them. 

" Some bitter draughts bring 
Their own subsequent sweetness," she answered. " The taste 
May grow pleasanter to us, though never effaced : 
It mav lose all its bitterness even, and leave 



GERALBINE. 191 

Little more than the kiss of a friend. We may grieve, 
And be glad even while we remember ; for God 
Will be kind, I am sure, and will spare us the rod 
Of a wretched remembrance when once we have learned 
What his wisdom would teach. He has tenderly turned 
Many Marahs to wells of refreshing and strength. 
I believe every heart can find gladness at length 
In the faith that all lessons of God are as good 
As the Master himself." 

" And no reasoning could 
Be so strong as your faith," he replied. " I should know 
It were idle to challenge that. Since I must go 
Very soon, I'll admit I am vanquished." 

He laughed 
In his easy and spirited way, and with craft 
And with cunning address he diverted their speech 
Into other relations ; yet often the reach 
Of his cynical comment was cruel and keen, 
As with utterance sharp it went flashing between 
A half-credence and ready denial. He spared 
Nothing reverent now from allusion that dared 
To be lightly irreverent, measured and mocked 
The pretences of creed and profession, and talked 
Like the doubter he was. 

Many heard him, and felt 
A quick shrinking and pain from the blows that he dealt 
Without mercy wherever he went ; but the most 
Only laughed at his wit and the half-hidden boast 
In his words of a wise unbelief, and took pleasure 
In hearing him. Gifted with insight to measure 
The feelings that shyly kept silence, he sounded 
The shallows of conscience and motive, and bounded 
The average purpose with ready precision, 
Then singled them out for sarcastic derision, 



192 GEBALDINE. 

And sneered at their shame. 

When at length he had ended 
His call, and, with delicate lightness intended 
To soften his previous words, he had said 
An adieu, the mixed feelings of Geraldine led 
To as mingled expression. She wept, and she smiled 
Amid weeping. She uttered her thanks $ like a child 
In return for a token surprising, to Him 
Who had spared her beloved. With eyes growing dim, 
And with language that faltered, she prayed him to keep 
•Her beloved as hers, that none other might creep 
In between her warm heart and his own, that their ways 
Might be never divided. She prayed, as he prays 
For his soul who is losing it, pleading, with pain, 
That she never might know the wild longing and vain 
Of a love unrequited. She whispered the name 
Of her lover in tenderness sweet (though it came 
Through her tears) in the confidence always she gave 
To her Lord, and besought him in mercy to save 
Them from drifting apart. Yet her heart by and by, 
In the midst of her need and her longing, could cry, 
" Let it be as thou wilt, loving Father ; for mine 
Is the weakness of love, but the wisdom is thine." 




■■^^ 



XXI. 




N the late summer's glory that softly 
suffused 
All the world, Percy Trent idly, dream- 
ily cruised 
Down the River St. Lawrence. The 
wonderful sweep 
Of its waters grew wider and grander. 
The sleep 
Of the sunlight upon them, unstirred by a dream 
Of wild passion, was sweetly unbroken. Supreme 
In majestical beauty the river rolled far, 
Through a land where the deepest of solitudes are, 
On its widening course to the sea. In the mood 
Of its marvellous peace, that serenely did brood 
O'er the scene, he went sailing away to content. 



When the afternoon lengthened, and day was far spent, 

They caught sight of Cocouna, where wealthy Canadians 

Saunter in summer like happy Arcadians. 

Trim and white-visaged, it sat on the shore, 

Miles remote from the steamer that steadily bore 

For the Saguenay's mouth, far across ; and it seemed 

Like a city set low in the sky, as it gleamed 

On the crystal horizon, — a city of cloud, 

Far away from the din and the fret of the crowd, 

In some country of silence. 

13 



194 GERALDINB. 

At Tadousac's wharf 
They made landing, and tarried to look at its dwarf 
Of a church, and the relics of centuries dead. 
Pretty Tadousac out of its stillness has said 
Not a word for the foreigner's hearing. It hides 
In its modesty shy where the Saguenay's tides 
Pour their inkiness into the mightier flow 
Of St. Lawrence ; and none of its quiet can know, 
And the charm of its solitude strange, till they stand 
On the beautiful beach, where its delicate sand 
Ever tempts the most delicate feet to a bath, 
Or go straying alone by some vine-hidden path 
To the bluffs overlooking the river and bay. 
In the dark of the waters, white porpoises play, 
And make merrily bright the tranquillity there ; 
But no music of birds is borne out on the air, 
And no whirring of spindles, no clangor of steel, 
And no screaming of whistles, make frequent appeal 
To your sense of activity. Languor and rest 
Are as opiates here ; and the common behest 
To a laborer's brain and his wearying heart, 
To arise, and in duty and doing take part, 
Is a whisper unheard, where the speech of the time 
Is in whispers, with rest for its rhythm and its rhyme. 

In the deeper and mellower hush of the night, 
Amid shadows that shut the wide world out of sight, 
They went sailing northwest. The next morning at seven 
The Bay of Sweet Laughter, that looks up to heaven 
Untroubled and glad, — sunny Ha-Ha, — gave greeting 
With smiles of surprise. As the morning sped, fleeting 
As mornings of pleasure and peace ever seem, 
The sharp bow of the steamer was set down the stream, 
And they sailed with the tide through the silence. A shell 



GERALDINE. 



195 




Of pure pearl was the sky overhead, and it fell 

In its purity silvern and white to the hills 

On the left and the right. If the Lord ever stills 

A fierce tempest of feeling run high in the breast, 

With the might of his word to an infinite rest, 

It is here. If the silence of God ever falls 

In its tenderness down on the world from the walls 

Of the City of Gold, they have known it who sailed 

Through the Saguenay's stillness. 

Xo mariner hailed 
Their approach, and no fisherman shouted his word 
Of salute. The soft calm of the air never stirred 
To harsh utterance here, or the wing of a bird 
Flying wearily home to his nest-keeping mate. 
From the bold, rocky heights that were grim, desolate. 



196 GERALDINE. 

And untenanted, bounding the river's deep black 
From the sunny Ha-Ha to the quaint Tadousac, 
Never came to their ears or their vision a sound 
Or a signal the solitude deep and profound 
To disturb. 

Cape Eternity, grandly uprearing 
Its dome to the azure, invited their nearing, 
And thrilled them with awe of its might so tremendous. 
Cape Trinity, opposite, lifted stupendous 
And mighty its masses of granite to greet 
The sublimity facing it. Majesties meet 
In no kinglier fashion than these, as they tower 
Far into the deep of the blue in their power 
Titanic, from out the deep blackness below ; 
And no gloomier depths in their sombreness flow 
To the sea than the deeps of these desolate capes, 
That in silent solemnity cover their shapes 
Half the altitude marvellous. Sailing beside 
Their huge granite upheavals, the pomp and the pride 
Of humanity fade to forgetting, in awe 
Of the Infinite Presence that never man saw 
But on mountains majestic and lonely. The lift 
Of their faces is Godward ; and sudden and swift 
Is the leap of our thought from each adamant crown 
To the Spirit eternal that loving bends down 
With a glad benediction forever. 

Too soon 
Came the close of that sheeny and bright afternoon 
As they sailed down the river of silence. The sweetest 
And gladdest of days is forever the fleetest : 
It slips into yesterday's arms, and we say 
A good-night to its pleasure and peace in the gray 
Of a twilight that will not forbear. If it take 
Of our heart' s-ease, and cruelly leave but the ache 



GEEALDINE. 197 

Of disquietude, hunger, and longing, what need 
That we wonder and grieve ? They are blessed indeed 
Who their faces have steadily set from the past, 
And who will not look back. 

The next morn they made fast 
To the wharf at Quebec, and Trent hastened by rail 
To the hills of New Hampshire. A summer day's sail 
Has its charm for the soul in disquiet: the ills 
Of unrest are forgot in the calm of the hills 
Everlasting. Who walks where their grandeur uprears 
Should be glad with a hallowing gladness that cheers 
Like a word of the Lord never lost. In the strength 
Of their masterful quiet and glory, at length 
He should stand as do they, with their face to the throne 
Of their Maker, in patience, and wait. 

As alone 
Though the mountains he wandered uplifted, his soul 
Catching glimpses beyond of the land of its goal, 
He was near to content. He could muse, in a mood 
Of serene exaltation, on passion that wooed 
Him astray from the pathway of duty, nor shrink 
From the wearisome way he must journey, nor think 
Bitter things of himself. In this mood he could lie 
On the sunniest slope, see the fleets of the sky 
In their fleecy white silence float dreamily by, 
See the thistledown drifting at peace on the air, 
Hear the tinkle of bells far below him, and care 
For no morrow of possible pain. 

Yet aware 
Of the days that awaited, nor happily blind 
To their certain unrest, though now calmly resigned 
In a willingness patient, he stayed to behold 
The glad summer in garments of scarlet and gold 
Proudly decking herself in the early September, 



198 GERALDINE. 

While sweetly she tarried in dreams to remember. 
Ere leaving, the mountain-top highest he climbed, 
And with vivid and sorrowful prophecy rhymed, 
Out of vision unclouded, and quieted fears, 
And pathetic concern, of 



THE VALLEY OF TEARS. 

If I climb to the mountains of gladness, 

And bask in the sunshine of bliss, 
If unheeding all sorrow and sadness, 

Forgetting the good that I miss, 
I look out from my uplands of being 

Across the broad reach of the years, 
I grow tenderly sober at seeing 

The shadowy Valley of Tears. 

It is never quite lost to my vision, 

Though often beyond it I see 
The green slopes of the summits elysian 

That wait with their blessing for me ; 
And, though often I long for the freedom 

That yonder eternally reigns, 
I remember that each has his Edom 

Before the glad Canaan he gains. 



When my heart with tumultuous throbbing 

Takes up the sad burdens of men, 
I go down amid sighing and sobbing, 

And walk the dim valley again : 
A sober, sepulchral procession 

We make as we journey along, 
With a grief for our only possession, 

A funeral dirge for our song. 



GEBALDINE. 199 

There are willows above us low bending, 

That weep with us over our woe ; 
And the mist of the mountains, descending, 

Bedews all the way as we go. 
In the dark of our dubious grieving 

We walk as if stars had gone out, 
And our souls were grown sick of believing 

The morrow were more than a doubt. 



There are hearts, with their hunger pathetic, 

That walk in the Valley of Tears; 
There are souls, in their sadness ascetic, 

That linger and grieve through the years ; 
There are loves that come silently hither 

To seek for some treasure of cost, 
And that mourn, as a bairn for its mither, 

The wonderful love that is lost. 

There are many who wait and who wander 

Within the dim valley with me, 
And who yearn for the mountain-tops yonder, 

The sunlight and gladness to see ; 
But a stranger I look in their faces, 

And strangers they look into mine ; 
And as strangers we grope for the places 

Where sunlight and gladness may shine. 

For who walks in the valley so lonely 

Goes there in his sorrow alone; 
And who gives friendly greeting gives only 

For bread to the hungry a stone. 
They may touch us whose yesterdays tender 

Made loving and living supreme; 
But our grieving refuses surrender, 

And friendship was only a dream. 



200 GERALDINE. 

I am far up the mountains of being: 

The mists of the morning below 
In their beauty shut out from my seeing 

The valley where soon I must go ; 
But I know, though the sun of my hoping 

May shine with a gladness that cheers, 
That I soon shall be wearily groping 

My way in the Valley of Tears. 

You may smile on the summits of gladness 

Who never have wept at their base ; 
But in time with the garment of sadness 

You closely will cover your face ; 
And unknown of the many who wander, 

Unknowing as they are unknown, 
You shall grope for the radiance yonder 

Across the dark valley alone. 

Amid pitiful sobbing and sighing 

Where willows and cypresses bend, 
You shall walk where the shadows are lying, 

And see not a sign of the end: 
You shall know, by the twilight unbroken 

When morn on the mountain appears, 
You have come, without warning or token, 

At length to the Valley of Tears. 



'^^^^mm^n^r—. ■ 



XXII. 




HEX she read the long letter of Per- 
cival Trent, 
Loving Geraldine Hope of her ten- 
derness lent 
To its words, and they gladdened her. 

Still he was hers 
In possession the truest. Xo doubt 

ever stirs 
The fond heart to keen throbbings of 
pain, but is stilled 
By repeated assurance of love. Never thrilled 
Any love with the pang of distrust, but could glow 
With the gladness of faith come again, like the flow 
Of a tide that has ebbed. 

But a striking omission 
She saw by and by, that began to condition 
Her happiness new. Xot a word had he penned 
Of his late episode : from beginning to end 
There was not an allusion, in fact, to his friend 
Mrs. Lee. It was plain that he could not have known 
Of the published report of their death that had flown 
With such cruelty to her ; more bitterly certain 
It seemed that his silence had drawn a thick curtain 
Between her and part of his past. She resented 
His action at first, and then swiftly repented 
The feeling she had not expressed ; for he knew 
What was best for them both, and in kindness he drew 



202 GEBALDINE. 

Any veil that might hide her from seeing. Till he 
Should the curtain uplift, she would reverent be, 
Nor profane it with curious touch. She could wait, 
In the patience of prodigal love, for the late 
Revelation that love would compel. If it never 
Were made, if by strange providence she must ever 
Relinquish the love that could make it, perchance 
In a clearer to-morrow the dark circumstance 
Would light up into blessing. God knew. 

If she came 
In the trust of her faith to a pitiful blame 
Of her love, to a fear that so worthful and sweet 
An incoming as this in her life were not meet . 
For the Master's approval, or, tearful, to ask 
If he chose to place on her the pain-giving task 
Of upyielding it, could she obedient lay 
The dear sacrifice on the Lord's altar, and say, 
" I have given thee, Lord, all the sweetest and best 
That is mine"? — if the loss of her love, as a test 
Of her love for the Master, came to her at length, 
And she struggled and doubted and wept till the strength 
Of her faith overpowered her heart, — be not swift 
To assert that she lacked the great womanly gift 
Of deep loving ; and wait till all women you learn, 
Ere you doubt if the heart of a woman can turn, 
When the weakness and longing of love make it falter, 
And give of its riches unspared on the altar 
Of God. 

There are heroines kneeling alone 
In their Holy of holies, or sitting unknown 
Where the multitudes worship,, whose offerings, made 
In the silence of faith seldom doubting, have paid 
Dearer tribute than incense of patriarchs. Laid, 
With the lingering touches of womanhood tender, 



GERALDWE. 203 

In tearful but cheerful and hallowed surrender 

Before the veiled face of their Lord as he waited, 

Such offerings precious and costly were fated 

To pleasure him better than blood, and to win 

Recognition as precious. They only begin 

To approximate love, who in selfishness sin 

By withholding its wonderful treasure and sweetness, 

And hindering so the perfected completeness 

Of full consecration. 

And Geraldine felt 
All the deepest assertion of love when she knelt 
And said, "Lord, if this thing that to me is so dear 
Has been wrong in thy sight, let me hallow it here 
With my tears of upgiving, and yield it to thee 
To do with as thou wilt." She could generous be 
With the Master, not doling him meagrely out 
Of her poverty's wicked withholding and doubt, 
But as lavishly yielding her riches, and knowing 
The best she could give must be beggarly showing 
To God, the one Giver of all. Though she gave 
With a liberal heart, that was noble and brave, 
She well knew that the end was not won in her giving; 
That sacrifice sweetest to Gocl is a living 
Obedience daily, when truly obeying 
Is harder than praise, and more costly than praying. 
She knew, if the Lord should her offering take, 
She must make it complete through the lingering ache 
Of her heart in the wearying days to be met ; 
That the Lord could not mean her to drink and forget, 
If he gave her the cup. 

She was human ; she rose 
To no saint-nature, clad in angelic repose, 
In this crisis of faith : and how strongly she kept 
Her humanity weak could be seen as she wept 



204 



GERALDINE. 



For the love she might lose. In the time intervening 
Ere Percival Trent came again, the full meaning - 
Of painful expectancy blossomed, and bore 
Bitter fruit in her life. Now, as never before, 
She was wearied and troubled of soul. For the rest 
Of content she could sobbingly pray ; but its blest 
Benediction should come as the Master bestowed. 
Though she longed for the peace like a river that flowed, 
She but caught an occasional draught from its brink, 




As her thirsty soul pined, even panted, to drink 
To its measureless blessing. 

When Trent came at last, 
From her wearisome doubting and fearing she passed 
To a loving acceptance of good in to-day. 



GEBALDINE. 205 

She made glad, in her simple and beautiful way, 

His return to her love. He was hers once again, — 

The one prince of her heart mid the nobles of men. 

She would trust till he told her to doubt ; she would show 

How she trusted and loved till he made her to know 

He must fail of requital. Perchance, if he cared 

For another, her love, if it maidenly dared 

To give new revelation of being, would lure 

Him away from his fancy to faithfulness sure. 

Could the Father forbid an endeavor so pure, 

And deny it success ? Could the semblance of sin 

Be in any beguiling made only to win 

And to keep what she felt to be hers ? Worthy winning 

It was ; and the Father such dutiful sinning 

Would quickly forgive. 

Do you wonder that Trent 
For a time could believe the strong passion was spent 
He had wrestled with so ? He had come from the hills, 
With their peace fresh upon him, their masterful wills 
Overmastering feverish impulse. He came 
Full of purposes faithful, and penitent shame 
Of his former unfaith, to be loyal and true ; 
And he stood by her side, undeserving, he knew, 
With no wish beyond happiness present, believing, 
In blind, willing credence, that folly's brief grieving 
Was ended. She helped his belief with her sweet 
Declarations unsyllabled. Passion's defeat, 
With the aid that she brought him, so timely and tender, 
Yet strong, was complete, or so seemed. Its surrender 
He smiled at in strength over-rated. 

They talked 
In the language of lovers ; as lovers they walked 
Where the waters run seaward by Rivermet's side, 
To behold the tall maples in radiance dyed 



206 



GERALDINE. 



Like the robes of a queen ; and, if peace were denied 
In superlative measure, these twain, who received 
Of its blessing more moderate, fondly believed 
It enough. 

When some good we have craved appears less 
Than will meet our desire, we are prone to possess 
The full bounty in easy imaginings, cheating 
Ourselves that we may not be cheated, repeating 
The pretty delusion, and letting it seem 
To be fact : so we make of our moments supreme 
A half-fiction, the truth very deftly disguising 
That great expectation may be most surprising 
In lack of fulfilment. Poor dolts that we are 
Thus to carry our covetous folly so far* 





XXIII. 

N November, Trent lectured at L . 

Mrs. Lee 
Was again the one hearer responsive 

to see, 
Of all present, in scanning the crowd 

at the Hall. 
He was moved by the current mag- 
netic, and all 
The quick feeling begot by a look in her face. 
They who listened were stirred by the magical grace 
Of his speech, as he never had stirred them before. 
In the musical ring of his words there was more 
Of a sympathy deep than he knew, or than those 
Whom it thrilled could define or describe. 

At the close 
Of his lecture she came to him, — came as the rest, 
Who with greeting and compliment's flattery pressed 
To his side ; and they met in the casual way 
Of a common acquaintance, with courteous play 
Of inquiry and answer. The major took part 
In their meeting, and studied them both with the art 
He had mastered so well ; but no secret he read 
Of their innermost holding. Their manner but said 
They were friends without interest deeper. 

They went 
From the Hall as together they gossiped; and Trent 



208 GERALDINE. 

In her company supped, with the major. If either 

Was thrilled by the strongest remembrances, neither 

Gave sign. Conversation was easy, and ranged 

From the grave to the gay at its will. They exchanged 

Merry trifles of wit in the merriest fashion ; 

And none could have guessed that a powerful passion 

Hid under such trivial speech and composure 

So perfect. In vain for some look of disclosure, 

Some word of deep meaning, the major made scrutiny 

Keenest. Swift passion was dead, or its mutiny 

Conquered by resolute will. 

And yet, leaving 
To seek his hotel, in a partial deceiving 
Of self as to feeling aroused, and believing 
Too much in his strength to make safe his belief in it, 
Percival Trent was unhappy. The grief in it, 
Subtle, deep-seated, and dimly defined 
As a grief, with a robbery keenly unkind, 
Took away from his evening's endeavor the glad 
Sense of triumph. He walked the still streets with a sad 
Recognition slow forcing itself on his soul, 
That the glamour of public approval is dole 
But the poorest for peace of the heart. 

The next morning, 
Regardless of silent yet forcible warning 
Against it, he called on his friend; and she met him 
With charming serenity graceful that set him 
To wondering. Could it be she whom he heard, 
When her feeling had swift every syllable stirred 
With deep fervor, confessing a love too supreme 
For denial, or silence, or death? Did he dream 
She had lain on his breast, with her heart to his own, 
In a bliss of possession too sensitive grown 
To be painless ? Was this the same woman who spoke 



GERALDINE. 209 

Of her wilderness barren and lonely, and woke 
His quick passion's response ? Was her winning repose 
Like a calm of the tropics deceptive, that glows 
With the heat underneath it to hurricane wild ? 

She received him with beautiful grace, that beguiled 

Him anew. The warm grasp of her lingering hand 

Within his, like a breath upon dark embers, fanned 

His swift feeling to flame ; but he struggled to hold 

As serene a demeanor as hers, and controlled 

Himself well. Without blushes, or faintest betraying • 

Of passionate force that was meetly delaying 

Assertion, she talked like a woman long wed 

With content, far removed from the girl who has said 

Her first loving confessional. Part of the harm 

She might do to a heart was hid under the charm 

So elusive, that spoke of conditions beyond 

Idle feminine art, or superfluous fond 

Demonstration. 

His lecture she praised with a keen 
Apprehension of meanings and truths ; and between 
Her sweet flatteries gave with a friendly temerity 
Critical words that declared her sincerity, 
Making the light of her praise appear strong 
By the shade of her delicate frankness. As long 
As it pleased her, they talked of the commoner things 
Of experience, shunning the sensitive springs 
That can open the heart ; or discoursed of the newest 
Attempting^ in prose and in verse, and the truest 
Successes of those who had won. She appealed 
To the poesy in him expression to yield 
With the power and art he might master, and give 
Out of gifts that were his a few poems to live, 
And win laurels undying. 

14 



210 GEEALDINE. 

" I honor the gifts 
Of the poet," he said ; " and my pen never lifts 
To make rhythmic endeavor, but keenly it longs 
For the genius to prove it a singer of songs 
That may gladden the future. The cruelest dower 
Men have, I believe, is the semblance of power 
They know to be weakness. We narrowly miss 
A great good, and forever we fancy that this 
Is the sum of our cruel defrauding. I hear 
Now and then the sweet accents of Poesy clear, 
And I strive to repeat them ; but swiftly they fade 
Out of memory. Silence her finger has laid 
On my lips ; and I feel, through the pain that has come 
To my soul, it were happier far to be dumb." 

" But the singers to whom the world listens must feel 

The same bitterness often. They rarely reveal 

The full music that thrills them : they breathe a few notes, 

And the rest never hallow their fortunate throats 

For our blessing. Moreover, no true singer's art 

Was born in him whole statured. He learns of his heart, 

And he sings as he learns. He must grow to the measure 

Of full-singing strength in a studious leisure 

Improved by the lessons of pain. You can turn 

To the poet's best pages at will, and there learn 

How he grew to his manhood poetic by reading 

Between his own lines ; for his silence makes pleading 

Of sympathy. Do not you feel he has striven 

To teach you in song what to him has been given 

In cryings for utterance ? " 

Looking with furtive, 
Quick glance in her face, he beheld the assertive 
Appeal that so haunted it often, swift showing 
Itself through her smile. With his blood quicker flowing, 



GERALDINE. 



211 




■W&W-: -&±- " ?-- ^ 



Yet calmly, he spoke, — 

"I suspect that you read 
With a vision much deeper than mine ; that I need 
My poetic first lessons to learn now of you : 
For no singer is heard without sympathy true, 
And deep insight to see what are mysteries hidden 
From all but the few. I believe you were bidden 
To sing, and are wickedly silent. For me 
There is only an echo of song: there can be 
No outringing of marvellous notes that are mine 
As I catch them direct from the singer divine 
To whom poets all listen. And yet a refrain 
May be tenderly sung till it softens the pain 



212 GEBALDINK 

In some sorrowing heart, and uplifts it. I 'd ask 
For no mission diviner, no holier task, 
Were I laureate crowned for the world, than to sing 
Of its sunshine, and on my strong melody bring 
It forth out of the dark." 

" By and by you will print 
The best songs you have sung, and will give us a hint 
Of the sweeter to come : I believe in your gift 
As diviner indeed than you think. It should lift 
You above the great chorus, who sing out of tune, 
And torment us. You '11 give us a tenderer rune 
Than the many could breathe, if they stood at the door 
Of the innermost temple, and listened, before 
They began to make echoes of song. It will know 
Sweeter cadence and mellower grace for the flow 
Of last summer's experience into your being. 
Some deeps of clear vision have come to your seeing, 
You needed, for charity's sake and for love's, 
To behold." 

"I remember, my friend, that the dove's 
Divine errand came after the storm. But, if sent 
When the floods of this passion so idle are spent, 
Will the dear dove of song, flying over the waste 
Of my life, come again in her comforting haste, 
Bringing olive-leaves ? " 

She with her sudden allusion 
Unmanned him ; and he in as sudden confusion 
Responded, he hardly knew how. With the look 
That she gave him, his strong resolution forsook 
Him, and fled. In its hunger pathetic he saw 
The great want that would scorn to derision all law 
Of denial, if free from its bondage of chains. 
And that bondage — what was it? 

" For you there remains 



GEBALDINE. 213 

Worthy work in the world, and who labors receives 

In due time of his wages. Your dove's olive-leaves 

Will bring promise of happy fulfilment to make 

Your life rich with glad increase. You '11 sing for the sake 

Of the multitudes eagerly listening, and find 

Your own gladness in service of song that is kind 

Most of all to yourself. Good Samaritan singers 

Are few, I believe, who divinely are bringers 

Of oil and of wine to the wounded and sore, 

And who fail of a blessing themselves as they pour 

The sweet blessing on others." 

She spoke with some feeling, 
Her words growing tenderer still, as appealing 
She looked in his face. 

" Could I sing you to peace, 
1 would stop by the wayside forever, nor cease 
In my service of song till you bade me," he said 
In his passionate utterance low. 

" But instead 
You must sing for the mass," she replied. "I shall listen 
More eager than they. In my heart I shall christen 
As mine all the sweetest and tenderest things 
You may breathe. I shall comforted say, ' Now he sings 
For the neediest one, — for the one in the world 
Who can take the rich treasure of sweetness impearled 
In his notes, and feel gladdest and richest possessing it.' 
Give as you may to the multitude, blessing it 
Freely with giving's extravagant hand, 
I shall count you my singer henceforth, though you stand 
On the highest Parnassus, and I, sitting far 
In the valley below, see you shine like a star." 

With a mighty endeavor he mastered the tide 
That was sweeping him on to expression denied, 



214 GERALDINE. 

Yet invited. He rose to depart. 

" I shall climb 
To no height above yours ; and my tenderest rhyme 
Must forever fall short of the ministry sweet 
I would lend it for you. Never song so complete 
By a poet was sung as my longing desire 
Would make vocal, if only these lips knew the fire 
That is burning my heart. But my lips are as weak 
As the lips of a woman." 

He smiled. 

u If, to speak 
Of her love, a weak woman — the weakest — might dare 
In the words that were fittest, you 'd own that a share 
Of the strength of her heart had been suddenly lent 
To her lips." And the look that she gave to him sent 
The warm blood to his breast. " And her lips need be strong 
To repress what in utterance could be but wrong. 
Do you doubt it ? " 

" Their silence is cruel, when speech 
Would be cruelty worse. Let them tenderly teach 
The same silence to mine." And he kissed her, repenting 
At once the request and her ready assenting. 

" Good-by ! You will sing for me often," she urged. 

The wild passion he wrestled with rioted, surged, 
Through his heart. With a masterful effort he turned 
To the door. 

"When the singer's true art I have learned, 
You may hear me. Good-by ! " 

He went hastily out 
Of her presence, and into a torment of doubt. 



XXIV. 




UT a da}' or two later a brief letter 
came, 

Without prefix of date or appendix of 
name ; 

And as Percival Trent read it, flush- 
ing and eager, 

The forces of passion combined to be- 
leaguer 



His soul. 



" You have been here," the letter began : 
"You have come and have gone. If our hearts overran 
The hard limits we set for them, flowing together 
Like parallel rivers in storm-laden weather, 
Are we to be blamed ? my poet ! the touch 
Of your lips lingers yet upon mine ; and if much 
Of my feverish longing and pain they reveal, 
You who wooed them to speech must as gently conceal 
Your displeasure. I never can bid you be dumb 
Any more ; for it seems to me now that the sum 
Of my pain is your silence. I long so to hear 
The dear words you ought never to speak, that I fear 
I am foolish, unwomanly grown ; and I crave 
For the freedom to echo those words, as a slave 
Must pine after the freedom forever denied. 
As I see you far over the gulf yawning wide 



216 GEBALDINE. 

And unending between us, I reach out my hands 

And I call to you. Fate with its cruel commands 

Would compel me to cease ; but I cannot. I cry 

Through the desolate distance, and say, ' By and by 

He will hear me and answer.' You make no reply, 

And my hope like a willow droops downward, and weeps. 

I am learning the infinite pity that sleeps 

In the bosom of God, I so pity myself. 

As I count up the goods that I have, they are pelf 

But the poorest compared with the treasure I covet. 

I see it just out of my reach ; and I love it 

So wildly, and long with such longing to hold 

It supremely my own, that my heart, over-bold, 

Would compel the possession at once — if it could. 

" my friend ! you who hold by the true and the good 

With so steady a hand, you must come to my need 

With your certain uplifting. I hunger, with greed 

That can brook no denial, for life that is strong 

In the truth, and that steadily sets against wrong 

The unchangeable features of duty. You only 

Can lead me up out of this solitude lonely 

In which now I wait, by temptation beset. 

When I stronger am grown, I may cease to regret, 

And may go, with a face that is calm and determined, 

Along the hard road where they march who are ermined 

Of soul like yourself; but to-day not the weakest 

Of women, among the most timid and meekest, 

Is weaker than I. May Heaven pity me ! None 

Are so feebly outstretching their hands to the sun, 

While they sit in the shadows, and shiver. The whole 

Of my being is but a complaint. In my soul 

There are only wild throbbings rebellious, and great 

Sobs of pain, and these loud cryings-out against fate." 



GEEALBINE. 217 

He was stirred to the deep of his nature, and wrote 
An impulsive reply : — 

" To your passionate note 
My heart beats a response that the flow of my pen 
Can but coldly interpret. I kiss you again, 
That my heart, overrunning my lips, may betray 
To your own, throbbing fervidly under, what they 
Could not fitly reveal, though endowed with the spirit 
Of love pentecostal. They only who hear it, 
Or feel it, know all the sweet emphasis hid 
In love's tender, unsyllabled speech. If you bid 
Me to breathe out a full revelation, I never 
Can do it in words: I must make the endeavor 
In language with meaning far deeper. 

" My friend, 
I can lead you in worthiest way to an end 
That is worthiest, only as steady I face 
My hard duty apart from your side. In the grace 
Of your presence 'twere easy to turn from the heights 
I must climb, and to find in the sunny delights 
Of my longing the gladness I crave. I could flee 
From the path I must follow, and hold you to me 
In possession defiant of duty, defiant 
Of all your denial, supremely reliant 
On need, — on your need and my own. To resist 
The pathetic appeal of those lips I have kissed, 
Till our souls came together; to hearken, and hear 
Them beseeching my help in a cry that is clear 
As the signal of love is forever, and stay 
In the distance — ah! this is the trial that may 
Overmaster my manhood, my being, at length. 
If I ever can reach you my hands in the strength 
Of uplifting to serve, and not sacrifice each 
With its weakness, not long will you wait, and beseech 



218 GEBALDINE. 

For the aid I can render. I pity your need 

With a pity unbounded, that can but proceed 

From a love that is boundless. I hear the appeals 

Of your heart with a throb of my soul that reveals 

The deep pain I must suffer, the yearnings intense, 

And the buffetings cruel. My way is as dense 

With perplexities now as your wilderness long 

Has been lonely and sorrowful; in it the song 

Of sweet faith has died out into silence. Too stoutly 

Distrust of myself is asserted, devoutly 

To let me from self turn away to the might 

That is certain. I dare not kneel down, and invite 

For us both the one help that alone can avail, 

When I know my petition must falter and fail 

On account of so feeble desire. For confess 

It I will : I would rather this moment possess 

The great love that you give me, and know it my own 

Undenying, in fullest of plenitude shown, 

Than to pray you may learn its withholding, or learn 

What is easier far, — to forget. And they burn 

In my bosom, these words that might hint of return 

I would make, as I do and I must ; while my prayer 

For denial of speech would go out on the air 

With a wish that itself be denied, and my plea 

For the strength to forget would but mockery be 

Of too cherished remembrances. 

" No : on the reed 
Of my resolute purpose I lean, till to plead 
For a better support I may dare, feeling true 
To the want I shall syllable, pulsating through 
My petition a longing sincere. Yery tender 
Indeed to the soul that in perfect surrender 
Of wish and of will comes to him, are the greetings 
Of God ; but he never can hush the wild beatings 



GEBALBINE. 



219 



Within a poor heart that denyingly holds 

To its pain. All my love your strong feeling infolds ; 

And as vain as I know it, as wicked as vain, 

And as certain of sorrow, so sweet is the pain, 

That I welcome it. Held in its clinging embraces, 

We two may clasp hands, and touch hearts, though the 

spaces 
Of infinite distance are rolling between." 

While he still on the reed of his purpose would lean, 
She made answer to answer of his : — 

" That you came 
When I called you, can never be set to your blame, 




220 GEBALDINE 

Since you thought your response a denial instead. 

To my hunger and longing you tenderly said 

The sweet words that were manna to me ; and they fed 

When I famished. What need had my poor heart to hear 

Your profession of love ? I believe that the ear 

Of cold Yenus de Medici yonder would glow 

Into rose, would you once for the marble let flow 

Your warm current of masterful, passionate speech. 

There is only one utterance now that can reach, 

To revive it, this poor fainting soul that is mine, — 

The assurance that still you do love me. Some sign 

I must have, in my need, of that love, or I die. 

You will grant it hereafter as quick, when I cry 

To you over the deeps ? 

"My beloved, I try 
To be patient and silent and brave. I would add 
Not a pang to your struggle, nor sigh to your sad 
But heroic endeavor. Instead, I would make 
A glad martyr to-day of myself for your sake, 
If I only could bring you content. For I love 
You. So simple a thing to declare, but, above 
All assertion, so forceful and sweet ! The mild passion 
Of maidens at school in as eloquent fashion 
Might syllables take ; but this love that I feel ■ 
Is as truer than that as the ring of white steel 
Is more vibrant than lead. 'Tis a passion grown stronger 
And deeper, and richer and sweeter, the longer 
It slumbered : awakened, it holds me, and sways 
Me at will. In the glow of those glad summer days 
When it thrilled me at first, I half fancied 'twould seem, 
When we parted, as only a midsummer dream : 
In this sombre November the warmth of its flushes 
I feel, as the maiden can feel her first blushes 
At flattery paid ; and so warmly it gladdens me 



GEBALBINE. 



221 



Now with its color and life, that it saddens me 
Even to tears. 

" Foolish tears ! As they fall 
Down my face, I am glad that hereafter not all 
Of my bitterest weeping can rob it of sweetness 
Your kisses have left ; and my very unmeetness 
For holy caresses so tender and pure 
Can but make them in sanctified blessing endure. 
my friend ! my beloved ! so close have I been 
To the worst in the world, that the shadow of sin 
Hovers grimly about me to frighten and grieve me. 
Not mine was the fault ; and, my darling, believe me, 
The sin was no sin of intent, if to some 
Like a sin it appeared. 

" By and by you will come 
To my love and my need, as it seems to you best, 




222 



GEBALDINE. 



With your love and your plenty. You cannot have guessed 
From these hints, my heart's heart, how. I hunger and long 
For your comforting presence and cheer, or how strong 
Is the love I have weakly declared. With your face 
Looking into my own, and your loving embrace 
Giving courage and strength, I could better translate 
A brief page of love's living epistle. Sweet fate 
That will bring me some blessedest glimpses of you ! 
For I love you ! And this is my only adieu." 







XXV. 




ARLY winter went by. It was fortu- 
nate, truly, 
That Trent was so much in demand ; 

for unruly, 
Impulsive desire must have led him 

astray 
From his purpose so true, but for 
need to obey 
The imperative calls of the public. By night 
He would speak to the crowds ; and by day he would write 
For still wider persuasion in print. Had they known 
Who so eagerly heard him, how often a moan 
Of disquiet was hid by the utterance strong 
That so quieted them, or how frequent the wrong 
He was fighting within bore him down, while he wielded 
His blows on the wrong from without, they'd have 

yielded 
Their sympathy freely as yielding their praise. 
There were hours when he rose like a victor, and days 
When he sank in the dust of defeat. There were seasons 
When Duty made plain all her eloquent reasons 
For holding him firm to his wearying course ; 
There were times when his passion took terrible force, 
And so bitterly pressed him, so sharply assailed him, 
That faith in its feebleness faltered and failed him, 



224 



GERALDINE. 



And night swept him into its pitiless gloom. 

It may be he was morbid by nature. The bloom 

Of all beautiful things, it is certain, bore fruit 

In his thought; and he wisely and kindly was mute, 

If but ashes of apples he frequently tasted 

Instead, or but seldom unhappily hasted 

To tell of their bitterness. 

Men are too free 
With complaining recitals. Far better 'twould be 




For us all, if the troubles that fret and annoy 

Were but hidden away in a privacy coy, 

And not prated about to our fellows. Far better 

To make them for sunshiny gladness our debtor, 

Than beg of their sympathy often, and take 

Of its costly bestowal at will, when the ache 

Of their life may be deeper than ours. If we urge 

Our own woe on their ears, and go wailing a dirge 



GEBALDINE. 225 

Over happiness fled, we shall hear enough minor 
From them and ourselves to forget all the finer 
And happier music of hearts. 

When he went 
For another day's tarry at Rivermet, Trent 
Was subdued in demeanor, and notably carried 
Himself with restraint; but he partially parried 
His Geraldine's questioning look. He was weaker 
Than wont, he explained. The hard strain on a speaker 
Had worn him uncommonly. Seldom he slept 
Until nigh to the morning. His labor had kept 
Him from adequate rest through the day ; he had used 
Of his vital resources too freely, abused 
The great blessing of health, and must pay for it dear 
In depression and dulness. 

She gave him the cheer 
Of her outflowing love, though it seemed to her heart 
An impassable wall had arisen to part 
Them still further. She knew by some keen intuition, 
That once he would come on his lover's glad mission 
Of love with a happier feeling, and say 
Sweeter words than she now must expect. And the 

day 
For distrusting might come to her soon ! With the dread 
Of its darkness upon her, she faintingly fled 
To her Father, and unto his pity she cried 
For the strength she would need. 

When she, troubled, replied 
To the honest complaining of Trent, though evasive 
As honest, she urged him with feeling persuasive 
To seek a long rest amid scenes that were new. 

" Put an ocean of green, or an ocean of blue, 
Between work and yourself," she suggested. " Go over 

15 



226 GERALDINE. 

The billowy prairies, or turn again rover 

By sea, and get hearty and happy and strong." 

" But the time of my absence might seem to you long ; 
And next summer, remember, we were to be wed." 
" So you planned it, I know," hesitating she said ; 
" But it may be God means us to wait. I have prayed 
That our marriage may be in some manner delayed, 
If for any good reason it should not take place 
As we fixed." And the serious look on her face 
Told how earnest she was. " When the winter is ended, 
The wealth of your life will have been so expended, 
You'll need a whole summer of rest to regain 
The great loss. Go away. If it seem to be plain 
When the late summer comes, that our wedding should 

wait 
But your presence, no distance can be to you great 
That you journey on errand so glad;" blushing now 
At her words, as she uttered them shyly. 

" I bow 
To your bitter decree," he responded, not daring 
To trust a more serious answer. " The faring 
Of bold pioneers in the West has invited 
The vagabond in me since youth. I have slighted 
The call every year: now I'll heed it, and go 
To the region of sunset so soon as the snow 
Shall have vanished. But trust me to come to you soon 
When you freely will give me the coveted boon 
Of yourself." 

"And I freely will do it when truly 
It seems to be best; yet I would not unduly 
Make haste. We must try to be certain, and take 
Every step as the Master may lovingly make 
The way clear. He will show us his path for our feet 



GEBALDINE. 



227 



If we ask him." 

"Your faith is as certain and sweet 
As my own is uncertain and vapid too often. 
'T would light up the gloomiest way, and would soften 
The hardest and ruggedest path. Do you never 
Have doubts of the Master ? — of all your endeavor 
To touch him for healing of soul, when you press 
To his side in despair of aught else ? " 




" I were less 
A weak woman, and more like a saint, could I hold 
To my faith without doubting forever. As bold 
As was Peter, he sank in the wave when he walked 
To his Lord ; and my weakness has bitterly mocked 



Me at times when I should have been strong. 



We must doubt, 



228 GEBALDINE. 

I suppose, being human ; and heartsick, without 

Any help of ourselves, we too often must stem 

The thick crowd of our doubts and our fears, ere the hem 

Of the Healer's soft garment we touch." 

" And you feel 
That the Master walks always near by, and will heal, 
If you press through the throng to his side ? Though 

unseen, 
You are sure he is there ? " 

" There are times when between 
Him and me I can see only blackness ; but still 
I believe I shall find him through doing his will ; 
And he never is lost. It is I who have strayed 
From the way that he journeys. I seek him, afraid, 
Till I hear his quick question, ' Who touched me ? ' and then 
I am glad." 

Far less tender and reverent men 
Would have thrilled to her thought and her tone sympathetic, 
And smothered in silence all questions heretic 
That might have been syllabled. 

" Faith is magnetic 
As love, when it speaks from a heart beating free 
With the healthiest life ; and your faith upon me 
Is electric. I feel it more keenly, indeed, 
Than I feel my own faith from within. When my need 
Is the greatest, I wonder if once I believed, 
Or made pretence of trust." 

She was troubled and grieved 
At his words. 

" You are living, it may be, too mainly 
In self, are depending too much and too vainly 
On strength of your own, to be sure of the way, 
Or of light in the dark. We must serve him to-day 
With our might, when the strongest we feel, would we know 



GERALDINE. 229 

The Lord's help in our weakness. The farther we go 

Independent of him, in an idle belief 

In ourselves, the more certain some brambles of grief 

Will be found in our pathway to prick us, the more 

Is it sure that our questions will trouble us sore. 

It is easy to doubt," a quick thrill running through 

Her brief words as she uttered them. " Men who, like you. 

Are endowed with large manhood and generous life, 

Have the amplest endowment for doubting. The strife 

Of unfaith and belief must oft carry them far 

From the face and the voice of the Master. They are 

To be envied for strength, to be pitied for weakness. 

Their manliness strong and assertive the meekness 

Of faith overcomes ; and a faith that is proud 

Of the manhood that holds it will some time be bowed 

To the dust," 

" If I ever have foolishly classed 
My weak self with the strong, the brief season is passed," 
He responded half bitterly. " Few are so weak, 
And so conscious of weakness, as I. But I seek 
The great Fountain of strength without finding, and dwell 
Weary days in a desert where flows but a well 
Of deep bitterness ever, and drink till I thirst 
As do they who are famishing utterly. Cursed 
By the keenest of longings for peace and sweet quiet 
Of soul, I am held where the tumult and riot 
Are greatest, till often I sigh for the rest 
Of that sleep never ending." 

She trembled, and pressed 
Back the tears that her sympathy quick could have shed. 

" But you always are out of your desert-place led, 
When at last you are willing to follow the leading 
Of God, are you not? Our most pitiful pleading 



230 GEBALDINE. 

Is vain, if we make it while wickedly clinging 

To ways that we ought to forsake. The sweet bringing 

Of peace to our souls is along the hard road 

Of some duty we would not perform." And there glowed 

In her face the glad light of a full consecration. 

" Perhaps if we knew not some great desolation 
Of God," he rejoined, " we should never feel sure 
Of his fatherhood ; and if we cannot endure 
To be fatherless so for a little, how could 
We be orphaned forever ? Believing is good 
That will bring an occasional glimpse of his face, 
To make certain he is. I am glad of the grace 
Of my faith, that at times can believe so completely, 
And yours that so seldom can doubt, as they sweetly 
Make better my life." 

" But your faith may be fervent 
And certain as mine, if you go as the servant 
Each day of a Master most loving, who cares 
But to bless you in service," she said. Unawares 
She was blending rebuke with her words of appeal ; 
Yet no chiding of hers could be harsh. "You must feel, 
In your trouble and doubt, that you have not in all things 
Lent willing obedience. Out of the small things 
Of selfish idolatry oftenest grow 
The great forests of doubt, into which we may go, 
Beyond sunlight and shadow, far into the night." 

" But we always come out into morning and light ? " 

" You and I, let us hope." And she smiled rather sadly. 
" Some souls there may be who go onward so madly 
Intent on their own wicked wills, that they sink 
In abysses we miss, and are lost. When I think 



GEBALDINE. 231 

Of their pitiful madness, their longing distress 

In the dark, I could weep ; for the way that we press 

Is a hard enough way at the best. You and I, 

When it troubles us most, may find comforting nigh; 

But these wayfaring souls, without help or a hope, 

Can but wearily on in the wilderness grope 

Till the end." 

So they talked of the holiest things 
Of the heart. So he drank from the up-welling springs 
Of her beautiful faith, till his spirit grew stronger. 
He left her sweet patience at length, but no longer, 
As to it he came, full of bitter unrest. 
The old song of belief that had slept in his breast 
Woke to music again in a strain that was finer 
And sweeter than once for the tremulous minor 
That thrilled it. Complaint with new blessedness sharing, 
He soberly sang by the way of 



WAYFARING. 

The way is long, O Lord, that leads 

To cooling springs and fragrant meads : 

I weary of its weary length ; 

I lose all heart and hope and strength, 

As here I halt my tired feet 

And pray for rest so far, so sweet. 

I thank thee for a halting-place 
Made glad by thine own smiling face ; 
I thank thee that the dusty way 
Thy footsteps knoweth day by day ; 
I thank thee that some path there be 
From pain and care to peace and thee. 



232 GERALDINE. 

Its rugged steeps I would not mind, 
If, daily climbing, I could find 
Secure repose at day's decline 
A little nearer thee and thine ; 
If always from the mountain-peaks 
My faith could see the land it seeks. 

But when through gloomy vales I go, 
That no glad sunshine ever know ; 
When even thy dear presence seems 
A far-off thing of doubt and dreams, — 
Forgive me, Lord, if then I faint, 
And murmur oft, and make complaint. 

I know my times are in thy hand ; 

I long for light to understand 

How thou canst for each pilgrim care, 

How thou canst hear each pleading prayer, 

How unto thee each soul is known 

As if it walked the world alone. 

And some time I may comprehend. 
The way is long; but at its end 
A clearer vision waits the sight. 
In thy dear garden of delight, 
Wayfaring done, let me abide 
Where never falls an eventide. 




XXVI. 




,. , / T was later by less than a fortnight, 



that Trent 

Gave a lecture one night in the vil- 
lage of Ghent. 

He had firmly decided he would not 



i. W'rsL 



Meet his friend, Mrs. Lee ; but each 
purpose of men 
Is uncertain of issue. One only of all 
The great number of faces that crowded the hall 
Was familiar, and that one — was hers. As he caught 
Her first answering look, a brief moment he fought 
With his passion for mastery ; then with the art 
Of his utterance quickly he moved every heart 
To responses of sympathy. 

Who can define 
What is eloquence ? Is it some thought half divine 
And all noble ? Or is it the audible sign 
Of some feeling within that is striving to leap 
Into being of speech ? Is true eloquence deep 
As the orator's soul, and as deep as the hearer's 
He touches ? Indeed, is it true that he mirrors 
Some innermost thought of our own, unexpressed 
Hitherto, and unformed, when we feel in our breast 
The pulsations of pleasure that syllables seek 
Without finding? Is eloquence strength for the weak 



234 GEBALDINE. 

In expression, and lips for the dumb, who may speak 
Through the wonderful words of another? 

The lecture 
Was over at last, and the ready conjecture 
Of Trent became truth. Mrs. Lee was with friends 
In the place on a visit. 

"The time comprehends 
A surprise the most happy for me in thus hearing 
And meeting you now," she remarked ; and, appearing 
Unmoved in demeanor as he did, she asked 
Him to go with her friends to their home. 

If they masked 
Every passionate feeling in plain commonplace ; 
If he sat amid strangers, and looked in her face 
As he looked into theirs, with the courteous grace 
Of attentiveness only to speech that was clever 
Or trite as it chanced, — it may be his endeavor 
Was small ; for his passion was passive. He curbed 
It so stoutly and well, that it little disturbed 
His composure at present. To-morrow ? What matter 
Defeats yet to come, if to-day only flatter 
With victory ? 

Leaving them all in an hour, 
With placid serenity passing for power 
Over self, he went out to his solitude grim 
With its weakness defiant of strength. When to him, 
But a day or two later, this brief message came, 
In his breast he could feel the fierce breathings of flame: 
" my friend ! are we always and always like this 
To go on ? Is a touch of your hand, or a kiss 
Of your lips, to be all I can ever have granted 
Of you ? You could banish the ghost that has haunted 
Me long. You could lift me up into the sun 
From these shivering shadows. 



GEBALDINE. 



235 



" How much you have done 
For me now I can never reveal. As your debtor 
I ever must be, unless loving you better 
Than even I dare to confess is a payment 
Acceptable. Ah ! when I sleep in the raiment 
Of death, will they look in my face, comprehending 
How long and how sorely I needed befriending 




That God only gives through his image ? — the soul 

Of a man's loving nature, to guide and control 

My weak waywardness ? — love that should hold my behavior 

In line with its purity true, be my savior 

From all that could touch me to hurt or assoil, 



236 GERALDINE. 

In a merciful tenderness pour the sweet oil 
Of its gladness on life's troubled waters, infold 
All my faults in its mantle of charity, hold 
Me apart in its own blessed heaven ? 

" I know, 
Could you stand by me, darling, (God grant it be so ! ) 
When at last I am but a white silence, you 'd hear 
A new message to you through the calm atmosphere 
Round about me. My lips might not move ; but as clear 
As the clearest articulate speech they would tell 
Of the hunger that starved me to death. And so well 
Would you then comprehend all the longing and need 
I had suffered, I think you would pitying plead 
For the seal of that silence in mercy to break, 
That I might not eternally want. For your sake, 
My beloved, to tenderest speech I would come, 
Though the highest archangel might bid me be dumb; 
Out of pitiful rest the white silence would rise, 
And beguile you with kisses, and quiet the cries 
Of your heart for the loss of my love, and the grave 
Would in mercy release me to you. 

" But a slave 
To the hardest taskmaster — to Life — should not think 
How much kinder a master might Death be. I drink 
Of the bitterest draughts every day, then I dip 
My cup deep in the well of your love, and I sip 
Till its sweetness has gladdened me. Always athirst 
And an hungered I am. My one darling ! the worst 
Of the Magdalenes dared to come near to the Christ; 
And her faith, that was loving the sweetest, sufficed 
To redeem her from sin. If no virtue were mine 
But to love you, I fancy that this would incline 
The one Master to pity me. Wicked as one 
Who has never been pardoned, or ne'er has begun 



GERALDINE. 237 

To be penitent, still I could love you no more, 
Were I good as the angels of God." 

As before, 
When she called to him thus in her passionate speech, 
He responded, as moved by it strongly. 

"You teach 
The deep meanings of words," he made answer. " You 

tell me 
Of love far beyond my belief; you compel me 
To marvel that such a great love can be given 
To me. And for what ? my friend ! I have striven 
To solve the hard problem, have striven to still 
The strong, masterful throbs of my heart ; but the will 
Is as weak as the reason. Why love should lay hold 
Of my being with mastery cruel as bold, 
Is as dark and as blind as the will to resist it 
Is feeble. To-day I should hardly enlist it, 
If help were at hand that could victory give 
To my feeble resistance. To-day I would live 
In this marvellous love and the blessing it brings me. 

" The honeycomb shelters the bee that quick stings me. 

I taste of the sweets of your love but to feel 

The sharp pain that its riches of blessing conceal. 

You can never be mine. We are parted as much 

As if never I felt the soft lingering touch 

Of your kisses, — are parted as certain and wide 

As the east and the west. If you hungered and died 

In my absence, I could not come close to your side 

In the nearness of love's divine freedom to weep. 

Were I sleeping to-day the unanswering sleep 

Of the grave, you must stand in the distance, and say 

But a tearless farewell. 

" I am going away 



238 GERALDINE. 

When the buds begin bursting. Your duty and mine 

Both demand that I should. We must follow the line 

Of our separate fates. What your duty may be 

I can only imagine : my own is to me 

As unyielding as God. It is holding me now 

With its fingers of steel, and in calmness I bow — 

Though in merely the fiction, the semblance, of loyalty. 

Need not be said — to its rigorous royalty. 

Still, while I walk in the way that it urges 

Me on, I can feel the impetuous surges 

Of passion within me responding to yours ; 

I can longing look back on your face as it lures 

My return. Set it steadily forward, nor let 

It look backward to me with its haunting regret. 

Let us walk the two ways that lead farther apart, 

As if love were a lie, and we lived without heart. 

" Am I bitter and cruel ? Forgive me, and know 
That I write out of burning unrest. 

" I shall go 
To the West in a month, to find peace, if I can, 
On its plains and its mountains. The rigorous ban 
Of my duty forbids me to see you again 
Before going. I think if the strongest of men 
Were to stand at your side, with his purpose as true 
To another as purpose that God ever knew, 
He would falter, and love you, and linger — unless 
You compelled him to leave. So in safety I press 
The last passionate kiss on your beautiful face 
But in fancy : I hold you to me through the space 
That divides us, but dare not in parting come near; 
And I speak idle words could your heart only hear 
You would echo them back with such winningness, I 
Should wait near you to listen forever. Good-by ! " 



GEBALDINE. 



239 



She began her reply with the utterance strong 
Of a passionate nature unmastered. 

"I long 
For your presence and cheer with a longing that leaps 
Every barrier now, and compels it ; that keeps 
You beside me wherever you go. I shall cling- 
To your hand, though you journey as far as the spring 







Is from winter, and climb to the uttermost heights 
Of the earth ; for I hold as the crown of delights 
In all good that is fruitage of love, the keen sense 
Of a bodily presence in absence — the tense 
That takes hold of my yesterday's doing and being, 
And keeps it material still to my seeing 
To-day. You made yesterday worth such a keeping 
To me. When you entered my life, all its weeping 



240 GEBALDINR 

To smiles of thanksgiving and gladness was turned. 

I have learned the true meaning of life : I have learned 

The sublimest of charity. Out of the wild 

Of my desert so dreary, your love has beguiled 

Me to come ; but alas for the many who faint 

On the blistering sands, and whose feeble complaint 

Is not heard ! And alas for the souls that are lost 

Ere the desert so barren and burning is crossed ! 

" My beloved ! you cannot take leave of me here. 

If our paths run apart, you are always as near 

As affection can bring you; so near, that I share 

In your nobleness, feel the uplift of the air 

That you breathe, am made better and truer by you. 

It were folly to bid you a mocking adieu 

When I know you must stay by my side in the spirit, 

If not in the flesh. And my soul needs you near it 

So bitterly often ! So often it cries 

For the aid you can render, and waits the replies 

Of your heart with so weary a waiting, I think 

It would kill me, if now you should utterly sink 

From my sight into echoless silence. 

"And yet, 
Though my face may look back with its haunting regret 
That will haunt it forever, I see but a dim 
And a shadow-like semblance or spectre of him 
Whom so madly I love. The true self that I need 
With such hunger of needing will swiftly recede 
Out of reach. And I feel so defrauded ! The whole 
Of my womanhood owns you its master. My soul, 
Being cheated of you, like a slave in distress 
Can but moan by the way, with no bounty to bless 
It, and bring it again to the face of its lord. 
Without you I am ahvays and only the ward 



GERALDINE. 241 

Of tyrannical want, and my poverty begs 

For some opiate cup I may drain to the dregs, 

And forget the great wealth I have missed. 

" Am I writing 
Unreason ? Demented, am I but inditing 
Vagaries absurd, as the contrary feelings 
Of love I express in this manner ? Revealings 
Thus opposite ought not, perhaps, to be made 
The same moment. 

" If wild I may be, I have weighed 
The hard problem before us, with reason that held 
Me above the great hunger of love, and compelled 
Me to heed. You have work in the world, and I will 
Not make doing it harder. To-day I would still 
Every longing of mine, but to spare you a pang 
Of disquiet. The hope and the faith that you sang 
Ere you saw me must yet in your singing abide, 
Or I shall not forget that I ought to have died 
Before hearing and seeing you. my heart's heart ! 
Let me feel your strong throbbing again ere we part ; 
Let it teach me the courage of faith and of hope, 
As along in the desert I desolate grope. 
You will pardon the prayer ? I 'm not practised at praying, 
And chiefly, I fear, have the habit of saying 
My prayers unto you. 

" ' God be with you ! ' I say 
Now to Mm. For your sake I can fervently pray, 
If I may not or dare not look God in the face 
For myself. And I pray that some heaven-sent grace 
May bedew you with patience wherever you go. 
We have tested life deep enough, darling, to know 
That victorious living is better and truer 
Than happiness. May you the battle endure 
Like a victor, and win, if not happiness, peace ! 

16 



242 



GEBALDINE. 



And remember, beloved, I never shall cease 

To aspire for you, hope for you, love you, be proud 

Of your many successes, as if in the crowd 

Of the world I alone had the right. And who ought 

To be prouder than I ? In my future, the thought 

That I once was your friend, though forgotten I be, 

Will seem sweet as another's remembrance to me. 

I would rather have had my brief portion of you 

Than be held in possession most perfect and true, 

For a lifetime, of all other men. I am weak 

With the passionate gladness that flows to my cheek 

As you kiss me farewell. I am faint with the pain 

That is flooding my heart as I call you in vain 

Through the widening distance. The mist in my eyes 

Becomes heavy, and stifles my pitiful cries." 




XXVII. 




RENT was true to his purpose. He 
went to the West 
Without stopping to see Mrs. Lee. To 

the test 
Of her presence he would not, he dare 

not, again 
Bring himself. 
And his leave-takings troubled him when 
He saw Geraldine last. A great tenderness thrilled 
Through her loving good-byes. He could easy have willed 
To remain with her now, and possess her without 
Any waiting ; for over him brooded a doubt 
That he could not have set into speech, — an impression, 
That, leaving her thus, he was putting possession 
Beyond him forever. Her words of farewell 
Were so solemnly tender and sweet, that they fell 
Like a sad prophecy on his ears. 

He had penned 
A long letter to Isabel, making amend 
For refusing the cry of her heart, by replying 
In echoes as passionate. Firmly denying 
Himself the great gladness of holding her yet 
Once again to his breast, his quick pen would not let 
Him keep silent completely. It revelled in words 
That to listening of love were as music of birds; 



244 GERALDINE. 

And it told as with tears of his frequent unrest, 
Of the longing and fears that his being possessed. 

You will say he was weak. Let it pass to his credit 
That he had discerned the same truth, and had said it 
With bitter reproaches of self. And, beside, 
Let it temper your judgment that he had denied 
A temptation the greatest, — to go to her, give 
To the winds every promise and duty, and live 
On her riches of love. He was weak, and he knew it : 
His weakness had caused him too often to rue it, 
To leave him in doubt. He was weak : so are all 
Who believe in their strength ; and the many who fall 
Into folly and sin are the arrogant souls 
Who stand censor to others. 

We go to the goals 
Of our strong aspiration in weakness that trips us 
Again and again. The hard fortune that whips us 
With discipline's lashes has oftenest found 
Opportunity swift when we fell to the ground 
With our faces uplifted in scorn of the weak. 
If we find the great blessing of strength, we must seek 
For it humbly, believing our need to be sore. 

If the hills of the East have a charm to restore 
Balmy peace to the troubled of soul, the wide plains 
Of the West are as richly endowed. He regains 
The sweet quiet of being who goes to them faint 
With long striving for victory ; doubt and complaint 
Become rest and rejoicing; the rigors that goaded 
Him on melt away in the sunlight, so loaded 
With burdens of glory it glows like the blazing 
Of tropical heat ; and eyes weary with gazing. 
The roll and the sweep of their reaches are grand 



GERALDINE. 



245 




As the ocean unbounded; the billows of land 

Float away to horizons far lapping the sky ; 

And the magical breezes blow ardently by, 

As if bearing rich argosies over the sea 

To some haven of hope. If infinitude be 

Ever laid before mortals for dim comprehending, 

It hides in the plains and their reaches unending. 



The saunterer's mission was Trent's. He fulfilled it 
Religiously. Time was his own : if he killed it, 
And buried it out of his sight, he was winning 
The wager of life. And he thought it not sinning, 
In search of his bodily good, and the peace 
Of his spirit, to throw away care, and to cease 
From all studious habits. He lived like the men 
Whom he met by the way. He abandoned his pen 
For his rifle ; spent weeks as a hunter with those 
Who made hunting a business ; laid down at the close 



246 GERALDINE. 

Of each radiant day with his face to the stars ; 

And sleep opened for him the imprisoning bars 

Of his being, and freed him to perfect content. 

The glad winds of the West in their sport came and went 

Where unsheltered he lay ; and, as boldly they kissed him, 

Their marvellous vigor flowed into his system, 

And so he grew strong. 

He was seldom in reach 
Of the mails, and but seldom, therefore, did the speech 
Of his friends come to gladden or sadden him. One 
Wrote as little of love as if scarcely begun 
To believe herself loving ; the other withheld 
Not a passionate word, and her passion compelled 
His replies. But he wrote to his Geraldine merely 
The messages born of a love that sincerely 
Is guarded of duty, — such letters as most 
Of men send to their wives when their love is a ghost 
Of the thing it once was, and comes only in sight 
As a matter of habit when rarely they write. 

Did he love her ? He questioned thus daily. In vain 

Did he say to his heart that the answer was plain 

In the question itself. " Love may doubt," he could hear 

His heart reason. " The love that is surest may fear 

For its very existence. Wild passion may hide 

It from sight; but it will not so swiftly have died 

As you think. It is modest. It sits in the shade 

Of assertion unblushing, and trembles, afraid 

For its life. But hot passion is bold as the day, 

And it knows no rebuking, nor fears to betray 

Itself ever and always." 

He held by the love 
He had pledged to be true to, before and above 
The strong feeling that shadowed it, e'en though his lips 



GEEALBINE. 247 

Were so dumb to expression while passion's eclipse 
Hovered over. Nor once did he say to its face 
That it could not be love ; that it came to a place 
Not divinely its own ; that the heaven-guided guest 
Had more recently come to abide in his breast, 
And the early intruder must go. Never through 
The long days was he thus to his pledges untrue, 
If untrue in a deeper and wickeder sense 
He confessed himself. Either in fact or pretence 
He was loyal to love in the positive, though 
The superlative tried him for treason. 

The glow 
Of young summer grew fierce on the plains, and he took 
His way thence to the mountains ; there swift he forsook 
All the commoner haunts for those places where only 
The few ever come, and in solitude lonely 
Communed with the grandeur around him. He rode 
Up and down the green valleys ; he made his abode 
For the night where the night overtook him, and slept 
With no tent overhead but the azure that swept 
From one summit of gray to another ; he mounted 
Magnificent peaks, till in wonder he counted 
Their neighbors magnificent, lifting afar 
Their white crowns to the purple ; in gorges that scar 
The calm features of Nature like pitiless gashes 
Some Titan has made with his terrible slashes, 
He marvelled anew, till this life, growing small 
Mid the greatnesses round, seemed to dwindle, and fall 
Out of sight ; and he moved but an atom in space 
Overhung by the Infinite's glorious grace. 

In the grand exaltation of spirit that came 

To him here, life had never a worthier aim 

Than to be. Nothing grander than being; can seem, 



248 



GERALDINE. 



Where the mountains lift upward, majestic, supreme, 
And eternal. They stand like old statues of time, 
Looking God in the face. With the world in its prime, 
They are hoary of head ; and they gleam in the noons, 
Turn to crimson in sunsets, and gray in the moon's 
Mellow glory, as through the long ages asleep. 
As the shadows of darkness fast over them sweep 
When the moon is away, they grow ghostly and grim, 
Till their majesties .fade into distances dim, 
And the hush of their silence is solemn as death. 
When the dawn is at hand, its first crimsoning breath 
Floats across the long reach of their summits to crown them 
With colors of life ; the dark shadows slip down them, 
And seek the defiles where they lurk through the day ; 
Clear and strong their dim outlines come forth from the gray 
Of the morning; and through the baptistical rays 
Of the sun all their silence is priestly with praise. 





XXVIII. 

HEN the midsummer heat to its uttermost 
burned, 
From his wild mountaineering alone 

Trent returned 
To a town of the mines, for some let- 
ters expected. 
On reaching the place he grew strangely 
dejected 
In spirit, and felt a foreboding of ill 
That he could not shake off, though he bent all his will 
To the task. 

It was time for his summons from her 
He had promised to wed. If he went, should he err 
Against both, to give vows before God to be true 
Ere his passion was dead, and when truly he knew 
It must face him with mockery ? Should he not sin 
Against God and his soul, were he soon to begin 
Wedded life, while a woman he never might wed 
Could so burden his peace with the words that she said? 
Were it not the clear wisdom for him to postpone 
Consummation distrusted till doubt should have flown, 
And till love in sweet certainty came to its own ? 
In this questioning mood, there was put in his hand 
A small package of letters, that quickly he scanned 
For the two he cared chiefly to read; and he broke 
Mrs. Lee's first of all. It was passionful ; spoke, 



250 



GERALDINE. 




In the phrases she forcibly used, of her feeling 
Intense ; called upon him anew for his healing 
The hurt, " the sweet hurt of this sorrowful love " 
(That had grown in her being beyond and above 
All beside, making other loves seem but the sign 
Of weak tolerance now), with the oil and the wine 
Of his love-bearing speech : it, in short, was a letter 
Of credit drawn on him at sight, as a debtor 
To love, without limit, and paid by his passion 
In throbs of response. 

With a face growing ashen, 
When once he had fairly begun to peruse 
The long letter of Geraldine, this was the news 
That he read of her final decision, the sum 
Of her reasons for failing to say he should come : — 



GEBALDINE. 251 

" My dear Friend, — 

" Turn your face to the shadow a while. 
You may make believe then, that I say with a smile 
What the tears give me trouble to write. I am sure 
That God bids me speak, or I could not endure 
The hard duty. 

" I love you : let this be as plain 
As I ever have made it to you, and remain 
A fixed thing in your memory ; though to refrain 
From the simple confession were wiser, perhaps. 
I shall love you, I think, till eternity laps 
Upon time. It is sweet just to say it once more 
While the right is still left me. 

"You loved me before 
You had come to the measure of love in degree 
That is highest. You loved me as much as in me 
Was the power to call out your deepest expression 
Of love. I believe it, and hold the possession 
Of that which was mine, and which may be mine yet, 
Above rubies. 

" But, though I may weep with regret 
That I could not the deeps of your nature so stir 
As another has done, I no longer demur 
Against fortune that proved me thus weak to excite 
Your strong feeling, and showed you the higher delight 
That I could not awaken. And blame cannot live 
In my heart against you. I have nought to forgive 
Of unfaith : you have been to your pledges as true 
As true purpose could hold you. A greater love grew 
In your breast, and it would not be stifled. 

" I knew 
Months ago of the struggle that wearied you, saw 
How you battled in secret to conquer a law 
Of your nature, and feared the defeat that impended. 



252 GEBALDINE. 

You 're battling to-day : but the fight will have ended 
When this you have read ; for I claim you no longer 
As mine. You may yield to the love that is stronger 
Than love given me, and be free to win much 
As may answer to yours. And God grant that it touch 
You to peace ! 

" I have struggled to say this so long ; 
For I could not at first give you up. May the wrong 
Of my selfishness find its quick pardon ! I hoped 
That my love might still hold you to me : but I groped 
In a path growing dark, for my will was arrayed 
Against God's ; and my wishes were most, I 'm afraid, 
For my happiness rather than yours. 

" You will make 
No reply to this letter, but spare me the ache 
Of repeating the prayerful decision contained 
In it here. If you knew how my heart had complained 
To itself, — how with ready excuses it plied me, 
And long all the comfort of trusting denied me, — 
You could be but pitiful now, as you must. 
I have faith in your manhood and mercy : I trust 
In your silence to help me do right. For the way 
Opens clear to my sight ; and you never must say 
To yourself or to me that you ought to fulfil 
The faith plighted between us. I know that the will 
Of the Lord is against it. I know that he tells us 
To separate now ; and he always compels us 
To hear him. 

" You must not feel blame because I 
Make a sacrifice costly to me. By and by 
Compensation will come to my soul for the loss 
To my heart. By and by, shining sweetly across 
The hard path that I go, I shall see the dear smile 
Of my Master ; and that will the way so beguile, 



GEBALDINE. 253 

I shall cease to regret. 

" Do not think of me, then, 
As unhappy forever, or urge me again, 
Out of pity and honor mistaken, to wed you. 
The love that against your own will has thus led you 
Apart from me quite, was permitted for. some 
Divine purpose. I beg you, my friend, to be dumb 
While I study the lesson that to me is taught : 
When I fully have mastered it, life will have caught 
A deep meaning but now only dimly defined, 
And the Teacher will prove that his wisdom was kind. 

" On a day that is distant, perhaps, we may stand 
Face to face in a friendship with strength to command 
Every thought of the past into silence and sleep. 
Until then you will see me no more, lest I reap 
Greater harvest of pain than to-day I must glean. 
May God bless you in love and in life ! May you lean 
On his bosom for rest when you weary ! May being 
Grow broader and richer henceforth to your seeing, 
And fill itself nobly with duties well done ! 
God be with you, and keep you ! 

. . . " At last I have won 
The long conflict. Henceforth I shall think of you mainly 
As one who was dear, and is dead ; and, if vainly 
I seek thus to put you away, I shall know 
That the Master would teach me still further, and go 
Through the ways of remembrance till he leads me far 
Where the pools of his peace and his blessedness are. 

" Let me kiss you farewell, as a sister might kiss you 
Who felt that for years she must want you and miss you. 
Forgive the hot tears that will fall on your face. 
I am heart-worn and weak ; but the pitying grace 



254 GEBALDINE. 

Of our Father will strengthen me. Into your eyes 
Let me look once again, while the saddest good-byes 
That I ever have wept trickle over my cheeks, 
And my love its last picture for memory seeks. 
Breathe a prayer with me now that not always between 
The dear picture and me shall be tears. 

" Geraldine." 

As he read and re-read it, quick flushes of shame 
Brought the color anew to his cheeks, and swift blame 
Of himself fell upon him. He saw, as by clear 
Revelation, how weak he would always appear 
In her sight, and how wickedly love had been wronged. 
And he felt, that, in losing what once had belonged 
To him wholly, he lost a great treasure of worth 
Beyond any conception before. 

The wide earth 
Was between them. He knew her too well to assail 
Her decision by reason or wish. To avail 
Against faith like her own, against purpose so strong 
Based upon it, he now must convince her of wrong 
Against him in her judgment, must show her that through 
All the days of his doubt he had ever been true 
To the highest ideal of love. Could he do it ? 
He shrank from the question when thus he came to it. 
It hurt him deep down. It revealed to him clearly 
How false he had been ; and for days he was nearly 
Distracted between all the bitter accusals 
Of conscience, the hungers of heart, the refusals 
Of shame-stricken manhood, that hourly beset him. 
For, turn where he would, they persistently met him, 
And harassed him, pricked him, defied him to scorn 
Of himself, till he wished he had never been born. 




XXIX. 

departing, thus troubled, beset, from 

the town, — 
Was it accident ? — something occurred 

that should crown 
The unhappy condition of Trent. As 

he rode 
Through a canon, where foaming and 
musical flowed 
A wild torrent, he found, by the bridle-path lying, 
A man who was dead, or at best appeared dying, 
Alone. He lay prone on his face. In his side 
Was a wound from which oozed the life-current, and dyed 
His apparel. He looked like a miner, but more 
Like the men who infest mining-camps to win ore 
By the turn of a card, not the stroke of a pick. 

To dismount, and to lift the man up, was the quick 

And impetuous movement of Trent. As he laid 

The limp figure again at its length in the shade 

Of a pine overhanging, he gazed in its face. 

It was colored with death ; but there lingered a trace 

Of an earlier beauty within it despite 

Many traces of reckless abandon. Its white 

And its haggard uplooking at Trent so deep stirred him, 

He groaned, " May God help you ! I can't." 

The man heard him, 



256 'GEBALDINE. 

And opened his eyes. They were burning, intense, 
With a haunted look in them that glad innocence 
Never gives. For an instant they gleamed upon Trent 
In such glaring and murderous way, that they sent 
A strange fear running through him, then softened. 

" You 're not 
The sneak coward," the man weakly whispered, " who shot 
Me, I see." And his eyes closed again. " Lift me up. 
Let me drink — from your flask." 

" Mine is only a cup 
Of cold water," Trent answered : " your own, it may be, 
Can the quicker revive you. I '11 search you, and see 
If it 's empty." 

He felt the man's pockets, and took 
A canteen full of brandy from one, and the look 
Of quick death passed away from the man as he drank it. 
Then placing him easily there, with a blanket 
To bolster him up, Trent ripped open his shirt, 
And with awkward attention examined his hurt. 
It was mortal : no question of that. 

" You are near 
The next world, my poor fellow," said Trent. " Do you fear 
To go out of this into the other?" 

A sneer 
Curled the colorless lips. 

"I was never — afraid," 
The man answered, with speech growing stronger. " I made 
My mind up — long ago — that some time — I should die 
In my boots. It 's a trifle — too soon — by and by 
Would have suited — me better, of course — but I '11 go 
Without flinching. A curse on the vagabond, though, 
Who waylaid me ! " he said, sudden energy lending 
Itself to his words. 

" And who was he ? " 



GEEALDIXE. 



257 



" If sending 
A ball through my body prove friendship, I '11 call him 
My friend," he made answer. " Perdition befall him 
For this ! " And he moaned in his pain. 

" He should stretch 
A short rope for the deed he has done you, the wretch ! 
Was it plunder, or hate ? " 

" We were partners : we quarrelled, 
As partners are certain to do. I had corralled 




Too much — of the wealth, he declared ; and he swore 
That unless I divided — again, he would bore 
A hole into my heart. He sneaked up — at the last — 
Unbeknown, and — you found me here, dying — as fast 

17 



258 GERALDINE. 

As I could without help of the doctors." 

He grew 
Half facetious as strength from the brandy swift flew 
Through his veins. 

" Will you tell me his name ? I will see 
That some effort is made to arrest him." 

" 'T would be 
To poor purpose. No soul saw him do it. He 's free 
From all proof. Let him go to the devil the way 
That best pleases him." 

" Is there no word I can say 
For you after you 're gone ? " 

A keen agony spread 
O'er his face. 

" There are none to regret me when dead. 
I am friendless, — a vagabond — worthless and worse. 
All my life has been simply a blight and a curse ; 
But I 'm going out game ! " And he set his lips hard, 
As if battling with weakness. 

" No life is so scarred 
And disfigured by sin but that blessing can fall 
On it through the one Life that was given for all," 
Replied Trent. 

" That 's the stuff of the preachers : don't preach it 
To me ! There 's a hell for some men, and they '11 reach it, 
For all of your preaching. I 'm one of them." 

Pain 
Of the body or soul made him wince. 

He had lain 
A few seconds in silence, when Trent spoke again, — 
" God is father of all ; and the Saviour of men 
Is a brother as loving, as willing, as we 
Can desire in our need. He says, ' Come unto me ; ' 
And no limit is set to the words. Will you hear him?" 



GJERALDINK 259 

"I've long been a comrade of Death, and I fear him 
Far less than the preachers. I'm growing too weak 
For much talking; and yet I have something to speak. 
Put the flask to my lips." 

Trent complied, with his pity 
Deep moved for the man. 

"At the East, in the city 

Of L , is a woman, — my wife. You may learn 

Where she lives — and her name — from my papers, 

and earn 
The reward of her gratitude should you soon bring 
The glad news of my death. If there be anything 
She supremely desires, it is early to know 
She is truly a widow." 

Said Trent, " I will go 
To her on my return to the East, and will bear 
The sad message you wish." 

" It 's not likely she '11 wear 
Any mourning," he sneered, going on as if Trent 
Had not spoken. " I left her, without her consent, 
Years ago. A fifth cousin of hers had been making 
Too free with her beauty. I left her, forsaking 
The home she had shamed. I enlisted, and soon 
They reported me dead. 'T would have been the one boon 
She most wanted, — my death; but I lived, though I bor- 
rowed 
The name of another, and though my wife sorrowed 
In elegant black for the loss that was gain 
To her only. I lived, and must live — that was plain, 
When discharged from the army by orders my own. 
I came West — on the quiet — and wrote her. Alone 
Of all women and men from that time, she has known — 
Me as living, and known that she never could wed, 
Though a widow — in name, till again I was dead. 



260 GERALDINE. 

I have punished her so for the way she betrayed me. 
Besides — for my punishment just — she has paid me 
My price every year. I have lived on the sum — 
She was willing to give — that I never might come 
To life — there at her side." 

Hearing this, Trent became 
Even pale as the speaker. He feared for the name 
Of this woman so worse than one widowed. His breath 
Grew as short as the man's who lay facing his death. 

" She was proud — she was handsome," the speaker resumed, 
" And men worshipped her. Dozens — like me — have 

assumed 
That she loved them — devotedly. Stranger, beware! 
When the news of this day to that woman you bear : 
She will win. you to love her — as always she wins 
When it — suits her to try. 

" Ah ! the daylight — begins — 
To fade — early. I thought — it was morning — my friend." 

With great effort Trent spoke, — 

" It is noon ; but the end 
Of your life may appear like the close of a day. 
It is twilight for you. In the dusk let us pray 
That a morning of pardon be yours." And beside 
The man dying he knelt. 

" O thou Saviour, who died 
Between sinners, that sinners might live, see the soul 
That is going to God unforgiven, and roll 
Its black burden of guilt from it swiftly. Bend down 
In beneficent mercy this moment, and crown 
A poor life with the blessing of peace. Turn the heart 
Of this sinner to penitence, Lord, thou who art 
The one Master and Father of all. Make him yield 



GEEALBINE. 



261 



To the sweet ministration of Christ. Be revealed 
To him now, in this darkness of noonday, as one 
Who forgives and is kind; who is just, but whose Son 
Can redeem the most fallen to thee. Let him seek 
The great treasure of life at the last ; and, as weak 
And uncertain he gropes for it now, take his hand, 
Divine Brother of men, and lead into the land 
Where the weakest can never sin more." 

As he faltered, 
And ceased his petition, the dying face altered, 
The dying lips moved, as if shaping a prayer ; 
And a smile settled on them, and fixed itself there. 
By the wayside, Death came in his silence, and none 
Could have seen his dark form in the noon of the sun ; 
Yet he took the life up from the clay at his feet, 
And he bore it away with a motion so fleet 




262 gebaldine: 

That the watcher knew not if it lingered, or went, 
But in awe the old marvel awaited. 

As Trent 
Became certain that life had gone out of the face 
Growing fairer before him, he rose from the place 
Where he knelt, and walked down to the torrent to lave 
His hot brow in its beauty and blessing. A grave 
Must be dug, and within it, perchance, he must bury 
Some part of his faith in his kind. How the merry, 
Mad music of waters grew sad to his ears ! 
He was buffeted now by the bitterest fears 
That had ever assailed him. Who was the man dead 
In the shadow near by ? And what woman had wed 
Him, dishonored her vows, and such penalty paid 
For her sin and his silence ? 

He tenderly laid 
His cloak over the figure at length, after taking 
Whatever of value was on it. With aching 
Expectancy, then, he sat down to make clear 
In the papers before him the mystery here. 
As the first revelation, he started to see 
A fair portrait look out — that of Isabel Lee. 





XXX. 

AJOR MELLEN to Rivermet went, as the 
summer 
Grew long ; and Miss Hope, as she met 

every comer, 
Received him with courtesy winning and 
sweet 
When he called. 

" I am off for a rest ; and my feet 
Would not carry me farther until I had tarried 
To look in your face," he said warmly. 

She parried 
His compliment gracefully, though she felt sure 
He was thinking her changed. 

" But what makes you endure 
The hot season in town ? " he made question. " You show 
The depression it causes. You surely should go 
To the seaside." 

" I may by and by," she replied : 
" I have hardly been strong enough yet ; " and she sighed 
In unconscious confession of weakness. 

He spoke 
His regrets with more feeling than often he woke 
Into speech, and she looked at him wondering. Then 
She discovered his errand, and trembled. 

" All men 
Who have met you," he said, "must believe that you never 



264 GEBALDINE. 

Can sicken, or change, or grow old. You are ever 
To look at them out of a face that is fair, 
From your windows of life ever young. You will wear 
In my sight the same smile that unceasing you wore 
That brief summer I saw you at first, and before 
I had come to my years of discretion." 

He smiled 
As if half in contempt of his past. 

" I was wild 
In those days," he went on, " and too wayward to win 
Your respect altogether. You held it a sin 
Pretty nearly, that I should declare as I did 
How I loved you. You chided me then, and forbid 
Me to see you again till I quite had outgrown 
The hot fancy that vexed you- You gave me a stone 
Of dislike when I begged for the bread that could feed me 
To worthier life, — your great love. Could you need me 
To-day as I need you, I 'd give you the whole 
Of my being, my strength, all the body and soul 
That are mine. The old fancy is dead ; but maturer 
And stronger than that is this love that is purer 
I offer you now. And I beg you be pitiful ! 
None of the worst, out of all the wide city full, 
Need your true goodness as I do. I plead 
As I never have pleaded before." 

"If your need 
Be so great," she made answer quite slowly and faintly, 
While over her face came a look that was saintly, 
" I never can meet it. I gave all I had 
Long ago to another." She smiled in a sad, 
Sober way that was touching to see. " You have more 
Of love's riches than I. You can some time restore 
Any loss of your love, you believe ; but for me — 
I must always love on, though my love ever be 



GEBALDINE. 



265 



But a grief and a bitterness." 

" Say you are free 
From all pledges, Miss Hope," he went on to beseech ; 
" Say you do not quite hate me, and then I will teach 
You again to be glad and forget. I would take 
You to me, though I knew you were ill with the ache 
Of your love for another, believing you 'd learn 



■■ tfjrf"^^**-^ 




In my arms to grow happy and strong, and return 
All I give you." 

She thanked him, with eyes growing dim, 
For his charity broad. 

"I am pledged but to Him 



266 GERALDINE. 

Who creates or permits every love. My one vow 

Is to follow his leading in patience, and bow 

To his will. He would never allow me to seek 

A new happiness, till he has taught me how weak 

Are affections of earth to bring happiness best. 

He is giving me now a hard lesson to test 

My submission to him. I must always deny 

What you ask ; for no need can be greater than my 

Certain duty. Besides, it would be but a sin 

Against God and ourselves for us two to begin 

Wedded life, with my heart buried deep in its grave, 

And your heart turned away from the Maker, who gave 

It capacities great." 

" Do you hate me ? " he asked 
With quick passion. 

Her weakness was burdened and tasked 
To its uttermost. 

" No. I have thought of you only 
As one of my friends, — as of one who was lonely, 
And so to be pitied, because he had kept 
The Lord out of his life." And she silently wept 
As she said this. " I pity you now, and I pray 
Him to pity you too." 

" Yet you sit there, and say 
That you never will lead me to him, as you might. 
If I perish at last in the pitiful fight 
I have made and am making with faith, will you stand 
Conscience free, when you might have laid hold of my hand 
And uplifted me ? You can believe in a God 
Who is kind, though he hurt you ; you look at his rod 
As a discipline : I only doubt, as I must, 
Born a sceptic at best. But to live with your trust 
At my side would be next to believing, would hold me, 
At least, from denial complete." 



GERALDIXE. 267 

"Though you told me," 
She answered, t: that, were I henceforth to deny 
Your request, I should send you to ruin, still I 
Should deny it. Your duty lies only on you : 
You must do it, or suffer. And I must be true 
To myself and the teachings of God ; and these tell me 
That love is essential to love : they compel me 
Forever to hold myself free from a union 
Where two cannot meet in the perfect communion 
Of hearts, neither giving the other a measure 
It cannot return, and both finding all pleasure 
In giving their all. I have nothing to give. 
You would fall into folly and sin, should you live, 
Or attempt it, on husks of a poor toleration, 
Unfed and unhelped by love's full consecration 
Kesponding to yours. I should lead you to death, 
Should I bid you to come, with no love in the breath 
Of my bidding. The leading of God is far better 
Than mine ; for he binds with the beautiful fetter 
Of love beyond changing, that never can fail." 

" I would rather have your love than his." 

She grew pale 
At his wicked irreverence. 

" Pardon the thought, 
And the speaking it," quickly he said. 

" But you ought 
To beg pardon of him," was her answer. 

He lifted 
His eyebrows amusedly. 

" Some are not gifted 
At praying," he parried. " I never should be." 

She was hurt by his manner, and he could but see 
His mistake. 



268 GERALDINE. 

" I was mad to suppose that my need 
Could win favor from you, or that passion could plead 
Out of lips so irreverent ever as mine, 
And not shock you. 'Twere madness and folly of thine, 
Could I even persuade you, to trust to my keeping 
The peace of your faith. I should win you to weeping 
The bitterest often. And still I believe 
You would help me, Miss Hope. I shall go but to grieve 
That my fate is unkind." And a tenderer ring 
In his tones made her pity him more. 

" I can bring 
You no heart's-ease," she answered him softly, "to please you, 
Since faith that is comfort to me cannot ease you. 
I live on its blessing to-day, as may all 
Who in trouble of soul to its ministry call 
For relief." 

" Are you happy ? " he asked her. 

The tears 
On her face gave him answer. 

"The Father who hears 
My petition each day would not grant it, I think, 
Should I ask him for happiness yet. I must drink 
The whole cup that he gives me, though bitter and deep. 
I may never be happy again, save in sleep 
And in dreams — as I once was, I mean ; but the peace 
Of obedient service may cause me to cease 
Any longing for happiness lower." 

He saw 
The great weariness marking her face ; and with awe 
Of her faith that he never had yielded before, 
He arose to depart. As he stood at the door, 
He remarked, — ^ 

" Will you grant me some leave-taking token, 
To prove that I have not incurably broken 



GERALDINE. 269 

Our friendly relations ? Your promise to breathe 

A brief prayer for me daily would always inwreathe 

Me in holy remembrance. I ask it as one, 

Who, long doubting your faith, has almost now begun 

To be sick of his doubt ; and I ask it for sake 

Of my love, that, in leaving you now, would here make 

Its confession of weakness. I 've tasted the sweets 

Of all sinning; I've mocked at the bitter defeats 

That have mastered me. Long in my weariness, tired 

Of these idle pretences, my soul has desired 

With a hungry desiring some help from without. 

As I came here to-day, in this pitiful doubt 

Of myself, to entreat you to give me your love, 

So I ask you to bear my great longing above 

All the sins that beset it. I know not the way, 

And I have not the words." 

" I will promise to pray 
That some prayer may be taught you," she said. And her eyes 
Overflowed as she spoke. " God is near, and our cries 
He can hear, though so feeble and faint that they seem 
Like a breath in the night. And his help is supreme 
In its blessing. You '11 know it sometime." And she smiled 
Through her tears. 

"In your company faith had beguiled 
Me, perhaps, to believing long since. I have fear 
For my future alone. God is nearer me here 
By your side than he ever will come when I go 
Into ways of my choosing. I know this, and know 
I shall need you forever. Good-by." 

As he went 
Thus abruptly, the strength of her womanhood spent 
To its uttermost, Geraldine sank to her knees, 
By a sofa, half fainting. 

Through cruel degrees 



270 



GEBALBINE. 



She had come to a weakness so weary and worn, 

That it seemed she had suffered and sorrowed and borne, 

Until death would be welcome. 

Alas ! had she known 
How another was tempted and beaten, alone, 
And unhelped of the Master, since asking had flown 
From his need, she might even have begged to surrender 
The burden of being. 

But God is as tender 
And loving as wise. He in mercy will keep 
Too much seeing from eyes that already must weep. 



I . f ; ' '~' ":^L^ i) l 





XXXI. 

N the solitudes vast, in the wide, solemn 
spaces 
Where mountains looked up with their 

reverent faces, 
As if they besought benediction on all 
Who were troubled of soul, lingered 
Trent. Of the gall 
Of self-scorn, self-condemnings, he drank day by day 
Wretched draughts. On his forehead the breezes might play 
From white snow-peaks that yonder gleamed always in sight ; 
But he knew not the touch of their cooling delight. 
He was worn ; but he cared for no healing. He waited 
Apart from his kind, in a gloom that was fated 
To blind him to every bright presence, and stood 
Face to face with dark evil, deserted of good. 

There are terrible deeps that a man may go down 
When his feet are not stayed. From the beautiful crown 
Of some summit of gladness he sudden may sink 
Into blackness of hell, with no will but to shrink 
From the terror, no strength to leap upward, and hold 
Himself there in the sunlight. 

The shadows that rolled 
Over Trent became darker and denser. The days 
Moved along like a dream. The white noons, the cool grays 



272 GERALDINE. 

Of the evenings, the dawns with their wonderful blushes 

On mountain and sky, and the marvellous hushes 

That stilled all the world, — what were these in the strait 

Of his being? Alone he confronted the great 

And unknowable mysteries. Life was his own, — 

To be lived amid pain; to give up with the groan 

Of an instant ; to cling to, with skies like a psalm, 

And the air heavy laden with peace like a balm ; 

To let go at his will when tempestuous sweeps 

Of the storm bore him down to these horrible deeps ; 

To be sick of and scorn ; to condemn as a gift 

Without blessing or worth ; to give absolute shift — 

If he dare ! Yes, his life was his own. What of death ? 

The one heritage truly ; the Silence that saith 

To all care and all effort, " Be still ! " the one blessing 

The poorest of all may be sure of possessing ; 

The rest from all fever ; the peace from all pain ; 

The one antidote certain for life's bitter bane ; 

All humanity's right, that Divinity gave 

When he peopled the earth, and permitted a grave ; 

The last mystery waiting mortality's ken, 

To be read by and by — why not master it, then ? 

What was Fame, that he cared for it ? Only a speck 

On the ocean to sink in it ; only a fleck 

In the blue far above him to fade in the sun, 

And be lost. What was Eight, that the race he should run 

Against Wrong and be borne to the dust, but a bare 

And uncertain abstraction, that puniest care 

Like his own could not nourish or guard ? What was Duty 

But just a poor idol, bereft of all beauty, 

That he had been worshipping blindly till now ? 

What was Song, that she ever could place on his brow 

Any laurels to gladden him? — what but a faint 

Crying-out after concord, a feeble complaint 



GEBALDINE. 273 

Across echoless distance, all efforts at singing ? 
To yield them all up were the best, and by flinging 
Himself on the Future so misty and dim, 
To be rid of the Present defiant and grim. 

" I have made up my mind," so he wrote to a friend, 

" To go out of the world. I would walk to the end 

Of my life at a step. Yes, I know you will say 

Of life here. But I 'm dealing with things of to-day. 

They have wearied me utterly. What is the gain 

To do battle forever ? The victories vain 

That must daily be won are but gilded defeats. 

I am sick of their wearying, vanishing sweets. 

There are men who will call him a coward who goes 

From the work that is his to the lasting repose 

Of the grave without call of the Master. I care 

For no speech of the crowd. But you know that I dare 

What the mass hold in terror. You know that I face 

The unknown of the ages — the limitless space 

Of the Ever-and-Ever — with courage that sees 

All its possible dread. I have drunk to the lees 

Of regret, and its poison has entered my soul. 

How it withers and burns ! How my heart and the whole 

Of my riotous being are simply on fire ! 

I am wild with the one overcoming desire 

To go out from this fever to limitless rest — 

To forget — if I may ! 

" Were you ever possessed 
Of the devils of love ? Yes, my friend, there are such. 
They lay hold as with fingers of velvet : their touch 
Has the blessing of paradise in it at first, 
But God pity the man who has by them been cursed ! 
For they rend at the end like the demons of hell. 
All the hope and the beauty of being, as well 

18 



274 GERALDINE. 

As the fruit and the promise, are torn to a shred. 
It were better, indeed, to be known of the dead 
Than abide with demoniacs living and grim 
Mid the tombs. 

" Waste no words of your pity on him 
Who can feel as I feel, and can write as I write. 
He has only the scorn of himself. In his sight 
He is just a demoniac, rent with a rage 
That no Master of demons is near to assuage 
And allay. And yet pity me, though I forbid 
Any pitiful utterance ! Pity me, hid 
From the pity of God by a cloud of black doubt 
That makes night of my day ! I am beaten about 
By a tempest unceasing. My anchors are gone. 
It is gloom without end. I can pray for no dawn, 
Since some sin of my being has smitten me dumb 
Before him who might help me, — who only could come 
Into tempest so fearful, and still it. 

f . . " I wait 
But some prospecting party to end the hard fate 
Of this life, and begin again — where? They will take 
A few letters for friends, but not one that will make 
Any mention of purpose like this. My good-by 
Will not burden another than you. When I lie 
Here alone in the solitude, caring no more 
Whether love be a fiction, or death be a door 
Into fiction more idle, they '11 say I was killed 
By some vagrant. You only will know that I stilled 
My heart's beating myself ; and you will not contend 
You are wiser than they, since you serve me as friend 
With your silence. I know I shall like the long quiet 
These mountains will give me. Their peace, when my 

riot 
Of living is over, will stand me instead 



GERALDINE. 275 

Of the heaven that so blesses those happier dead 
Who have waited in patience to reach it. The Lord 
Must be near me henceforth ; and some meagre reward 
Will be mine for the pang of my dying. 

" Farewell ! 
The Beyond is so broad, that two never can tell 
If again they will meet when they lift its dark curtain 
To wander within it. This only is certain : 
The devils that mock me will miss me, and I 
Shall be free from this fever that burns me. Good-by ! " 

The days passed. The pain lingered. The fever burned hot 
In his veins. He was nigh to delirium. Not 
A stray miner came near where he tarried. He strolled 
Up and down the green valley, in dreams. He grew old 
As if suns were the measure of years. 

Then he made 
His resolve. He would climb the tall mountain, whose shade 
Had been over him daily ; would sound from its summit 
The deeps of blue distance beneath, with his plummet 
Of vision ; would gaze on the glory far lying 
Around him, again, and find easier dying 
Where heaven was the nearest. 

The journey was long 
And was slow. It was helped by no snatches of song 
That he once might have sung. On its earlier way 
There were reaches of green, and cool shadiness lay 
Like a blessing upon it ; but later the steep 
Became barren and rugged : for hours he must creep 
Through the glare of the sun, along courses no feet 
Had made easy before him. The blistering heat 
Of the noon made him faint. He grew giddy and weak, 
Yet he staggered along. Far above him the peak 
Reared in solitude lonely. Majestic, sublime, 



276 



GEBALDINE. 



It awaited his coming. 

Unconscious of time, 
Save that often it seemed an eternity here 
Had begun, he crept on. Through the white atmosphere 
He could see other peaks lifted far to the blue 
Of the sky ; while the distance took boundaries new 







As he slowly ascended, and range after range 

In sublimity rose, till an ocean of strange 

Rocky billows rolled far all around him, their tips 



GEBALDINE. 277 

Only swept by the wandering, vanishing ships 

Of the clouds, that before a warm breeze were adrift, 

And their hues ever shifting and changing, as swift 

The hot sun, the cool shadow, went by. The dark green 

Of the timber-lines everywhere belted between 

The light gray of the summits, and, sleeping below, 

The soft green of those valleys where musical flow 

The mad streams of the mountains ; the glimmering gleams 

Of white ledges shone out on the silvering beams 

Of the sun, and gave light to the soberer veins 

Lurking lower ; and broad in the east the great plains 

Rolled away from his vision, vast reaches of yellow, 

Dry sod, with long swells like the sea, and a mellow 

Haze marking their splendor remote. 

As he rested 
At times, he looked over that ocean, so crested 
With color and grandeur, half heeding how splendid 
The view had become, and yet feeling befriended 
And helped by its breadth. Though the fever grew hotter 
And fiercer within him, and often the water 
Supply that he bore was diminished, his brain 
Became steadier, truer, the throbbings of pain 
At his heart were less wild, and the marvellous wonder 
Of being laid hold on his insight ; for under 
The massiveness round a great thought seemed to hide 
From his vision, though dimly and vaguely descried 
By some deeper sense in him. He felt that he neared 
The sublimities nearest to God. It appeared 
To his sensitive soul, as yet higher he climbed, 
That he came where his nature the nearest sublimed 
To the nature divine. He grew out of his own 
Narrow bondage of life into freedom alone 
He can know who is filled by a new comprehension 
Of infinite fact. 



278 GEBALDINE. 

The day waned. The ascension 
More rugged became. The thin air was so light, 
That he panted for breath. Still above him the white 
Of the peak was uplifted against the blue arch 
Vaulting over, but lent him no shadow. His march 
Had begun, he believed, through eternity. Slowly 
He dragged himself up through the solitude holy, 
As slowly the sun swung its way down the west. 
The cool summit airs kissed him at last, as a guest 
Who was welcome. They fanned his faint heart. They 

upbore him, 
As onward he went, till he saw just before him 
The crest that was highest of all. 

When the sun 
Had sunk quite to his level, his journey was done, 
And he stood on the uttermost height, — a bald crown 
Of gray granite, moss-covered, from which, looking down 
Either side, he could see the dim valleys grow dimmer 
As deepened the shadows, could see the peaks glimmer 
With light far beyond them, could gaze on their faces, 
Uplifted around through the wide, solemn spaces, 
And marvel in awe. 

"All the strength of the hills 
Is His also ! " he murmured. " How weak are the wills 
Of His creatures ! How puny the arms we outreach 
In our proudest endeavor ! How idle the speech 
That we utter, the cries of our souls ! Life is only 
An atom of weakness, each atom as lonely 
As if God had gone from the world." 

There were tears 
On his face. He fell prostrate, and swift the fleet years 
Passed before him as thus he lay prone. All their error, 
Their failure, their loss, he beheld. With a terror 
At heart that he never had known, here he faced 



GEBALDINE. 



279 



What he had been and was. He grew shamed and abased 

In the presence relentless each moment. He thought 

Of old Moses on Nebo, who, hungering, caught 

A sweet glimpse into being the best, and then gave 

It all up, with no mortal to hollow his grave. 

And he said to himself, "I have seen the fair land 

Where love lives in content ; but I never can stand 

In its gladness, or sip of its honey and peace. 

This is Nebo to me. May it give me release 

From the bondage of passion forever ! " 

He lay 
Thus in trouble of soul while the beautiful day 
Faded out. The west crimsoned to scarlet. The bars 
Which imprisoned the sun were blood-red. A few stars 




280 GEBALDINE. 

Glinted down the blue deeps. The gray twilight let fall 
A soft mantle of shadows and silence on all. 

Then afar from the north came a wonderful sweep 
Of black cloud that swift mounted the darkening steep 
Of the summit. Far thunder growled low. The sharp flashes 
Of lightning grew constant, and nearer the crashes 
That followed them. Over the man lying there 
Where the mercy of sleep had soon found him, the air 
Became scintillant, gleamed with fine courses of flame, 
As if fretted with fire. The whole mountain became 
But a cone for electric display. 

He awoke 
As the storm gathered might, and a thunder-gun spoke 
Just above him with utterance awful. He sprung 
To his feet. Was it hell ? Had he certainly flung 
Himself into a future of horrors ? The gloom 
Of far spaces was lurid with light, and the doom 
Of dark Tartarus shrouded him. Blinded and dazed 
For the instant, his brain in a whirl, as if crazed 
By some terrible pressure, he stood there, and strove 
To make sure that he heard but the breathings of Jove. 

The mad lightning flew over the rocks of the summit 
In crinkles of flame. It shot down like a plummet 
Of fire through the deeps far beneath. The red flow 
Of its flashes lit up the black night with a glow 
Beyond color of speech. The whole atmosphere gleamed 
With the fluid electric that sparkled and streamed 
Round the visitor there as if mocking him, flaring 
Itself in his face as if vexed at the daring 
He showed, playing round him in circles that filled 
All his frame with their current. 

At last, as he thrilled 



GEEALBINE. 



281 



To the touches of death in believing, there came 
From the deep far above him a forking of flame : 
A great glare flooded over the dark, and he fell 
Limp and lifeless, with never a creature to tell 
The wild story and sad, if forever the breath 
Of his being had fled, and this silence were death. 

And he lay there alone, with his white, haggard face 
Looking up to the sky, neither longing nor grace 




Of life marking it now ; while the pitiful rain 
Beat upon it, as though to wipe out all the pain 
It had known in the past. Thus he lay there alone, 
Smitten down, with no time for a thought or a groan, — 
Smitten down when he held a mad purpose to take 
His own being up wickedly, rashly, and break 



282 



GERALBINE. 



It in twain in the face of his Maker, — struck down 

By the Maker himself, on the masterful crown 

Of that mountain sublime, ere the deed he had done, 

And the life of the future unfitly begun 

By a terrible sin in the present. He lay 

Thus alone till the storm spent itself, and the gray 

Of the dawn in the east began flushing with day. 




wycsz 




XXXII. 

OTHER NATURE is kind. The cool 
rain pelting there 
In the face of the man smitten clown 

gave him care 
That was timely and saving. It rallied 

him so 
From the shock he had suffered. It 
chilled the hot glow 
Of the fire in his veins. 'T was the medicine best 
For this fever that burned like a flame in his breast, 
And it blest him. 

He woke as the morning grew strong 
To uncover the night ; he awoke with a throng 
Of confused recollections besieging his brain. 
At the first, all his effort and striving were vain 
To recall what had happened ; then slowly he came 
To himself. He remembered his journey, the aim 
That it had, the mad purpose that moved him, the night's. 
Awful vision. Iffe shut his eyes close ; but the sights 
He had latest beheld were before him again. 
As they burned through his eyelids, he shuddered ; and then, 
Rising up, looking out from the height, he was thrilled 
By a wonderful picture. 

The tempest had stilled. 
Flying mists from the summit had flown to the deeps 



284 GERALDINE. 

Lower down. The lone peak was an island : its steeps 
Were encircled in fleeciness white, — a wide sea 
Without motion, milk-foamy, outreaching as free 
As the limitless ocean, — a sea with no sail 
On its surface to hint of a haven or gale, — 
A broad sea of white silence, where softly the hail 
Of some sailors unseen one might fancy he heard, 
Leaning over to listen. 

The air never stirred 
To a breath. Far away in the east the round sun 
Had rolled up from this ocean of cloud, that begun 
To be silver beneath it. Across the broad sweep, 
Looking straight from himself to the sun, on the sleep 
Of this marvellous sea he beheld a bright shimmering, 
Scintillant pathway to glory, whose glimmering 
Beauty grew brighter while gazed on. Below, 
Hidden under a gloomy, dense mass, with no glow 
Of glad color to cheer it, green valleys lay dim 
In their twilight, and waited the morning. 

For him 
The warm sun had arisen in splendor that eyes 
Of a mortal but seldom behold. The clear skies 
Of the morning held blessings for him. The white sea, 
Reaching round his calm anchorage, glistened, that he 
Might be glad with the vision. For him, him alone, 
The sun emptied its glory so freely, that shone 
Over summit and sea. Solitary, and far 
From his fellows, as ever might seem a faint star 
Lost away in the wilderness spaces, he stood 
There deserted of evil, alone with the good. 
Here and there a gray mountain-peak rugged uplifted 
Its crown, but another lone island, where drifted 
No mortal along through the silence to keep 
Him companionship distant. The radiant deep 



GERALDINE. 285 

Was unpeopled ; its islands were desolate. He 

Was alone in the world. From that wonderful sea 

Of White splendor the sun had arisen to glow 

For himself, as if never a mortal might know 

Its bright blessing, beside, on the breadth of the earth ; 

For himself, as if for him the planet had birth 

In the thought of the Lord, as if for him the world 

Had been' made, into wonderful space had been whirled, 

And the Maker had set him high up on its throne, 

And crowned him with glory as king of his own. 

Then he saw, with a sense that was deeper than seeing, 

He felt, the great truth, that the lines of his being 

Ran always from him to his God ; that in fleeing 

From life he was fleeing from God ; that forever 

His being, God-given, ran through all endeavor 

To God ; that he cared for it, guarded it, held 

It to uses the best and the truest; compelled 

It to answer for doing or promises ; knew 

Lot and purpose within it, as much as if through 

The long ages no mortal beside him could be, 

Or had been in the past, and as much as if lie 

Were the one only creature of God's mighty hand, 

Set to serve him as subject, and do the command 

Of his will ; as if God and himself peopled all 

The broad universe. 

Then, as a light fell on Saul 
When he rode to Damascus, convincing him swift 
Of his sin, while it clearly revealed the great gift 
Of his pardon, the glory that Trent beheld here 
Laid before him the sin of his purpose ; and clear 
As the glory itself he could see how the sin 
Had deluded his reason. Could penitence win 
Him forgiveness ? Could penitence ever beguile 



286 GERALDINE. 

The sweet mercy of God, and make certain the smile 
Of compassionate pity ? He sank on his knees, 
A weak suppliant now : — 

" Divine Father, who sees 
Every wandering soul, a poor prodigal comes 
To thy table, and begs for the merciful crumbs 
That his hunger can feed. See him now as he pleads 
For thy pardon ! Thy bounty can measure his needs, 
And thy love can bestow. Let the light of thy face 
Shine upon him, as here he beseeches the grace 
Penitential to hallow his heart. Let him feel 
The strong clasp of thy tender embraces, and heal 
The deep hurts he has suffered from sinful desire. 
With thy touches of cooling remove the hot fire 
That his passion has kindled within him, and give 
Him thy peace. Make him eager hereafter to live. 
May he hold by thy gift of creation with pride 
That is reverent, knowing that always the wide 
And the infinite distance between him and thee 
Is bridged over by infinite love. Let him see 
The great glory of being, the equal and greater 
Concern of a trust from the Father-Creator 
Directly to him. 

" Help him now, holy God, 
As again he begins the hard way to be trod 
Through the world. It is dark in the valleys ; but far 
Above mist, above gloom, the glad sun-glories are. 
May he see them forever before him, as one 
Who has stood face to face here alone with the sun, 
And beheld the Lord's presence. Master divine ! 
Let this morning to him be a token and sign 
In his memory ever, that always above 
The dim twilight of cloud glow the smiles of thy love 
And thy pardon compassionate." 



GERALDINE. 287 

Melted and broken 
By feeling intense that so feebly had spoken, 
His prayer became sobbing that moved him beyond 
Any utterance. Over his forehead the fond 
Morning breezes blew tenderly. Kneeling, he felt 
Their soft kisses of cooling, until as he knelt 
He grew calmer, and stronger of soul. 

Then he rose 
To his feet, and looked out on the scene of repose 
So magnificent round him. A vision supernal 
It was, in the light that from ages eternal 
Has glorified day, since the Deity spoke 
It to being, and earth into splendor awoke 
From its earliest night — a glad vision of peace. 
The white sea, like a calm that no tempest could cease ; 
The lone islands outlying in silence ; a rift 
Here and there in the deep, through which sudden and swift 
Could be seen a green valley in depths far below, — 
A glad vision. Alas that a picture with glow 
So ineffable, beauty and blessing so fair, 
Should as soon fade away as the mists of the air ! 

He was faint with long fasting, was hungry and weak, 

When with footsteps that faltered he turned from the peak 

To begin his descent. In the valley he knew 

He had food, and a horse ; but he said his adieu 

To the summit, in doubt if he ever could gain 

What so greatly he needed. If upward had lain 

The hard journey, he soon must have sunk by the way ; 

But he stumbled along down the mountain-side, gray 

With the mist that he entered at length, till he stood 

Underneath it, and saw it inwrap like a hood 

The far height he had left. Then below the dark chill 

Of its sombreness, gloomy, forbidding, he still 



288 GEBALDINE. 

Sought the valley beneath. 

More than once did he sink, 
Overcome, and exhausted with effort, and think 
That he never should rise. More than once did he ask 
For the strength that he had not, to finish his task. 
As the valley grew nearer, more level the slope 
Of the mountain became ; and a lingering hope 
Died away in his heart of attaining the spot 
Where his camp had been made. The sun burned him, as hot 
It shone down through the vanishing clouds. He grew sick 
Unto death. His lips bleeding, his tongue become thick 
From the thirst that beset him, he scarcely could lend 
Any form to a prayer. He must walk to the end 
Of his life, as it seemed, when he would not, nor seek 
The one help, save in dumb aspiration. And weak 
As a babe at the breast, when his feeble endeavor 
Had spent itself utterly, hopeless as ever 
Was babe that had never breathed hope, he sank prone 
To the earth, and lay there with a pitiful moan 
Faintly marking his slow and irregular breath, 
Alone telling that still he was master of death. 





XXXIII. 

N a late autumn-day Mrs. Lee sat alone 
In her room. If some part of her 

beauty had flown 
Through long vigils of waiting, a cas- 
ual glance 
In her face could not show it. Some 
tale of romance 
Mediaeval lay idly before her unread, 
Though its pages were open. Dumb sorrow, that shed 
Only tears of repression, looked out of her eyes. 
One might easily think she was hearing the cries 
Of a soul in despair. 

It was mid-afternoon, 
And for visits of form rather early ; but soon 
She was summoned below by a caller. No name 
Had been given the servant, — a friend, who but came 
With a message of interest : this was the word 
That was brought to her. Wondering, when she had heard 
What the message might be, if the effort to hear it 
Would seem well repaid, and beginning to fear it 
As something portentous of ill, she descended 
The stairs. If her life had on calmness depended, 
She could not more calm have appeared when she went 
Through the drawing-room door, and saw Percival Trent. 
He looked aged and worn, as if years had gone past 

19 



290 GERALDINE. 

Since they parted. Some change had been wrought that 

would last 
In his life, she as quickly discerned. 

" You 've been ill, 
Mr. Trent," she remarked as they met, " and are still 
But an invalid." 

" Yes : I was ill in the mountains 
A month," he replied ; " am in search of the fountains 
Of health, now, at home." 

" I had fears you were dead. 
It is two or three summers, I think, since you said 
Me a word. Were you reckless of life ? " 
' A quick pain 

Made more haggard his face. 

" I 'd have counted it gain 
But a little before to have died ; but I prayed 
More than ever to live when it seemed I had laid 
Myself down at death's door." 

" Tell me of it," her face 
Growing eager and pitying now, and the lace 
On her bosom betraying the heart-beats below. 

"There is little to tell. It is little I know 

Of the story, at any rate. Wandering down 

To my camp in the valley, from climbing the crown 

Of a mountain, my strength began failing me. All 

I could do by and by was to stagger and fall, 

And then lie there unconscious. The next that I knew 

I was lying in camp, not my own, with a true 

Good Samaritan nursing me. Providence sent him 

That way in the wilderness surely, and lent him 

To save me. He says I had fever, and lay 

On the edge of the grave for a fortnight. One day 

I awoke out of sleep, and I found myself there, 



GERALDINE. 291 

As I said, in the camp of a stranger. His care 

And the Lord's brought me through. When my strength 

had returned, 
He came with me to Denver." 

" He certainly earned 
The undying regard of your friends," she declared, 
Speaking warmly. " You cannot so early be spared 
From the need of the world." And the look that she gave 
Had a hungering in it. 

" I never shall crave 
To go out of this being again. I have seen , 
How it links with the being of God, how between 
The divine and the human runs ever a thought 
That should glorify life." 

It was clear he had caught 
A new glimpse of the sacredness being might hold, 
From his words and his tone, and she wondered. 

" I told 
A man dying," he said, " a while since, I would bear 
A hard message to you. He was past any care 
That could save him, — was dying alone." 

As he spoke 
Very slowly and sadly, he heard the slow stroke 
Of a neighboring bell, and it seemed like a knell 
For the dead. He went on, while his utterance fell 
To a low monotone, and she listened as one 
Who half feared, half divined, what was coming. 

" His sun 
Set at noon. It had been a sad life at the best. 
Before going, he told me a part ; and the rest 
I discovered from papers of his. He had said 
I should learn his wife's name from these when he was dead, 
And should find her." 

The woman who listened grew pale. 



292 



GEBALDINE. 



But kept silence. 

" My search could not possibly fail 
Of success, when, directed so plainly as here, 
I found guidance." 

He gave her a picture, — as clear 
A reflection of her as she ever had faced 
At the mirror; and when in her hand he had placed 
The mute semblance, he waited her answer. 




She took 
The small portrait, but offered no word. A dumb look 
Of appealing came over her face. 

" Richard Lee 
Was your husband. He died, with none near him but me, 
In a canon some miles from a camp. I sought aid 



GERALDINE. 293 

From there later, and buried him under the shade 
Of a pine, where he died. In this package you'll find 
The few papers he had, and his watch." 

c - You are kind/' 
She said faintly, accepting them; much as if saying it 
Only to prelude some question, delaying it. 

" No : I am cruel," he answered her sadly, 
" To you and myself. I would only too gladly 
Have spared you the pain of this meeting, and saved 
Me the hurt it has cost. But I could not. I braved 
Your distress and my own, as I must, for the sake 
Of my promise to him, and because I must make 
A last call upon you." 

She looked up at him then, 
With her eyes full of tears. 

" You have come to me when 
I can read you my riddle of life, can unmask 
What before I have hidden ; and now will you task 
Me to say a good-by that is final ? I ask 
For your pardon and pity. Forgive me for keeping 
The truth from you so ! I am bitterly reaping 
My harvest of folly." 

The pain in her voice 
Betrayed more than the words. 

" There is left me no choice," 
He responded with feeling. " We cannot continue 
To meet as if friends. I am free now to win you, 
And you are as free to be won ; but oar ways 
Must henceforth lie apart." 

She looked at him with gaze 
So intense that he trembled. 

" What was it you learned 
Of that man as he died, that so certainly turned 



294 GEEALDINE. 

You away from me ? What was the lie that he sealed 
His lips with at the last ? " 

As she boldly appealed 
To him thus, she was calmer than he. It was hard 
To repeat the hard tale of a woman's life marred 
As hers had been, and hard to refuse all replying 
When questioned so keenly. 

" He was not belying 
You wholly. You were the man's wife ? " 

Thus he parried 
Her queries, or tried to. 

" I was. We were married 
When I was a child, now it seems to me, — more 
Than a lifetime ago, I could think it, — before 
I at all comprehended what loving or living 
Might mean ; for I gave him my hand when the giving 
Was much like the gift of a book to a friend, — 
The mere thing of a moment. The saddest amend 
Has been made for my careless bestowal. Ten years 
He has called me his wife, — a long season of tears, 
And of pain to my soul. Within less than a week 
From the wedding I loathed him, — yes, loathed him ; but, 

meek 
As a woman, I yielded myself to his will. 
He was gross in his nature, — so gross he could kill 
Every sensitive feeling within me, and mock 
At the murder in scorn. There are times when his talk 
I can hear even yet, till no hell of hereafter 
Could madden me so. There are times when his laughter 
All devilish crazes me now, or so nearly 
I wonder if reason is left me. Yes, dearly, 
With price beyond any computing, I've paid 
For the gift that I gave him. My girlhood was made 
A dark shadow of gloom, and my womanhood knew 



GEBALDINE. 



295 



Only shadow and chill till you came. If I grew 

To be heartless and reckless, my friend, do you wonder ? 

Cut off from all happy content, put asunder 

From all that I craved, wedded so to the worst 

In the world that is ever incarnate, and cursed 

By my bondage with sin so diverse it took in 

All the grosser and uglier forms, I might sin 

Without adding to sorrow, I often was sure ; 

But I did not. I held my poor womanhood pure, 

Save as soiled by its contact with him. Did he tell 

You a different story ? " 

" He said that you fell 
From your womanhood's purity, covered with shame 
The home-altar," he answered her frankly. 

A flame 
Of indignant denial burned over her cheeks. 




296 GEBALDINE. 

" You believed him ? " she asked. " All those pitiless weeks 
When you said me no word, you believed me to be 
A false wife ? Is it so ? " 

" You forget, Mrs. Lee, 
That my silence was nearly the silence of death." 

" I remember now," faintly she said ; and her breath 
Became quicker, her manner more passionate. " Did you 
Believe for one moment his story ? I bid you, 
By all we have been to each other, and all 
That we might be, to tell me ! " 

" One scarcely can call 
It believing, when doubt is as strong as belief," 
He made answer. " And partial believing brought grief 
To me keen as you suffer at knowing that you 
Could be partially doubted." 

He paused. 

" I was true 
To myself and to him," she declared, " till you taught me 
What loving and life might in blessing have brought me. 
Imprudent and reckless at times, I confess, 
I cared little for gossip and comment, and less 
For the jealousy feeding on both. As for him 
Who pronounced me untrue by and by — 't was a grim 
And a sickening burlesque on purity, when 
He accused me of shame and dishonor. The men 
And the women of brothels knew well where he spent 
Both his time and my money. 

" One day, Mr. Trent, 
When my baby came to me," — a far-away look 
In her eyes as she spoke, — - " in brief gladness I took 
It up into my arms, and I said to the Lord, 
' Thou hast given me here what must be my reward 
For the misery mine. May it minister so 



GEBALBINE. 297 

To my need, I may better and worthier grow ! ' 
But it sickened. The dear little thing slipped away 
From my clinging embrace. It was cruel to pray 
It might live ; for the blood in its innocent veins 
Knew the sins of its father, and carried the stains 
Of his lecherous life in each drop. So he killed it 
By fatal transmission. They said the Lord willed it : 
I hated him then ; I have doubted him since. 

" After that, Richard Lee went away. I can wince 

Even yet at the pain that I felt, though, before 

I had courage to force him to leave me. The more 

And more freely I gave him of means, but the lower 

He sank into defilement. I stopped his supplies, 

And he robbed me of jewels, and pawned them. My cries 

And my pleadings he jeered at. At length he accused me 

Of shame;" and she shuddered. "The charge but amused 

me 
At first. But I had been too careless ; and some, 
Who professed to be friends, for the moment were dumb 
In declaring belief in my purity. None 
Can so hurt you as friends with their silence. The sun 
Cast a shadow far darker than ever on me, 
When my husband so hedged me about, I could see 
No escape. Then I offered to pay Richard Lee 
The full half of my annual income to go 
Out of sight of me ever, and stay there ; and so 
He enlisted next day, having drunk enough then 
To be brave. I could hardly be sorrowful when 
They reported him dead ; but my sorrow was deep 
When he came to life later. To-day if I weep, 
It will be for the loss of your love." 

" I believe 
In your truth and your purity both, and I grieve 



298 GERALDINE. 

That we cannot be friends in the future, except 

At a distance. This passion of ours, that has swept 

Through our lives like a western tornado across 

The wide prairies, may leave us with feeling of loss 

And of cruel besetment. But both of us soon 

Will breathe freer aud purer. A calm afternqon 

Of content and uplifting may come to us each 

For the morning of storms. I have heard the clear speech 

Of my Master appointing the way I must take, 

And I enter it patiently, gladly. The ache 

Of your life will be healed by and by, and the way 

That you walk will be pleasant, if lonely to-day." 

She smiled sadly, half bitterly. 

" Prophecy drops 
From your lips like a song, but unhappily stops 
Too far short of a plain revelation. It yields 
Me poor comfort to say that through sunshiny fields 
I may go on some morrow, if pain shall have ceased, 
Simply painless alone. It might give me at least 
Just a hint of companionship : but there is only 
One soul to mate mine ; and the way must be lonely 
That will not permit me to walk by your side." 

" I am weak, and unworthy all love," he replied. 
'"I had plighted my love and my faith, ere we met, 
And was true to the pledge. When my sympathy set 
With your current of need, then swift passion conspired 
To make league against love. All my nature was fired 
With the conflict. I wrote you, I said you, no sentence 
Of passionate feeling, but called for repentance 
Of manhood and faith. Thus it was till my pledge 
Was returned to me broken. I stood on the edge 
Of dishonor, and saw myself ready to sink 



GERALBINE. 299 

Into pitiless shadow. And there, by the brink 

Of that darkness that opened, shone out a great light. 

I saw clearly again, and I stood in affright 

At the vision so clear. Strong as ever the love 

I had plighted and broken appeared, set above 

Every other profession, yet shadowed by sin, 

And made darker by loss. That I ever can win 

My great losses once more, I may hope in some morrow, 

But dare not to-day. 

" Yet to-day I may borrow 
Your thought, that victorious living is better 
Than happiness. Count me forever your debtor, 
If slowly the thought in my life crystallizes 
To character. Out of the many surprises 
That wait for insnaring my weakness, I then 
Shall come forth a glad victor, and happier men 
Will not know such a blessing as crowns me. 

" And you — 
Let me echo your thought as the final adieu 
That I speak to you now, Mrs. Lee. I could never 
Make certain and true any patient endeavor 
Of yours : I could never prove company best 
For your soul. There is only one Strength we may test 
To the uttermost, knowing it never can fail : 
May you find it ! " 

He rose, and his cheeks were as pale 
As her own when she spoke. 

"And this, then, is the end?" 
She besought him with pleading. 

" Say, rather, my friend, 
That this moment we make a beginning in living 
Victorious, " firmly he answered, and giving 
His hand to her now. 

As she took it, they stood 



300 GEEALBINE. 

Face to face in farewell. 

" You are noble and good, 
But as cruel as fate," she declared. " And my fate 
Has been cruder far than the grave. I shall wait 
For the kindness of that with impatient appeal, 
Till it comes." 

The sharp pain in her words he could feel 
Keenly stabbing his heart. 

" May you learn that the blessing 
Of death is not one to be coveted ! " pressing 
Her hand between his. " May you see, as I see it, 
That life has its uses and sweetness, albeit 
Its crosses and losses are great ! " 

She grew faint 
From her hunger and hurt and the steady restraint 
Over self. As he saw it, he tenderly bore 
Her across to a sofa, and strode to the door. 

So they parted, — the woman half fainting, no word 

Of good-by slipping through the white lips that had erred 

In confessing a passion unduly, no token 

Of bitter reproach for the words he had spoken ; 

The man with a sense of distrust making laggard 

His self-justifyings, his face growing haggard 

And pinched with the pity and torment of soul 

That possessed him, — to find, if God please, the one goal 

At the end of the world, whither every road leads 

That we walk in, whatever our longing and needs. 



Qbkb- 




XXXIV. 




T was months before Trent became stal- 
wart again; 
But he took up his labor, and went 

among men, 
In much bodily weakness, and often 

depressed, 
Yet with strength of his manhood 
renewed. And none guessed 
That his life was a penitence daily ; that, giving 
Brave words for the true and the good, he was living 
A bitter repentance for sin he had pondered 
And planned ; that alone in despair he had wandered 
To lay down the burdens of being. He held 
His old cheeriness well before others, compelled 
The good-humor that won him his friends, went about 
As a light, not a shadow. But often some doubt 
Of himself sent him into the gloom that was near, 
Even when he stood most in the sun ; or a fear 
Of the mercy of God made him weak as a child, 
And despairing as one who is never beguiled 
By the blessing of Christ. 

At the first, in December's 
Chill dreariness, sitting alone by the embers 
He stirred to a blaze, he made offering gladly 
Of Mrs. Lee's letters, then musingly, sadly, 



302 GERALDINE. 

As flickered the flames into quivering flashes 
Of light, and then died, he wrote, — 



ASHES TO ASHES. 

A grate full and glowing : now burn every letter 

That tells of the past. 
Ashes to ashes ! 'T is better, far better, 

Such love should not last. 

Words half aflame with the warmth of their passion 

Will need but a spark : 
Nothing remains but a film that is ashen, 

Faded, and dark. 

How the fire leaps in its madness so merry, 

And kisses the lines ! 
Darkness will soon all their sentiment bury 

Where no one divines. 

What is the past? A wild dream that has faded, 

A story soon told : 
All of its sunshine to sombre is shaded, 

Its summer grown cold. 

Bleak blow the winter winds down the to-morrows 

With shiver and moan. 
How the grate glows with the fever it borrows 

From love that is flown! 



Chilly the air is ; the fever is dying 

That fed the hot grate : 
Out in the night the chill night-breeze is sighing 

As plaintive as fate. 



GEBALDINK 303 

Falter the flames into flickering flashes, 

Till dark is the room : 
Whisper it tenderly, " Ashes to ashes ! " 

Here in the gloom. 

Nothing remains of a marvellous treasure 

That one day was mine, — 
Passion disguised as a love beyond measure, 

And now without sign. 

Nothing remains? Ah! perhaps it were better 

Were ashes the whole ; 
But somehow I fancy each passionate letter 

To me had a soul ; 

And in the dark days of my dreary Decembers 

Each soul may return, 
And here in the gloom of my flickering embers 

May sacrifice burn. 

No matter. Good-by to the words that were spoken 

In days that are fled! 
For passion burned out, let the ashes be token, 

As dust for the dead. 

So he put from his sight what he could of the past 
That might trouble him, or that a shadow might cast 
On his present, to prove but a shadow of hurting, 
Not healing. His manhood grew stronger, asserting 
Its purified purpose in patience, and leaning- 
More nearly each day upon God. The deep meaning 
Of life became clearer and sweeter. He knew 
A diviner and holier thought running through 
All its uses than ever before. He was eager 
With tongue and with pen for the right. To beleaguer 
The wrong was henceforward his mission with zeal 
More intense, and with faith more uplifted and leal. 



304 GEBALDINE. 

And the time wore away. He shunned Rivermet chiefly, 

Or tarried there only as needful, and briefly. 

His hunger of heart for the love that he missed, 

And yet knew to be his, would at seasons insist 

Upon going to Geraldine straightway, and telling 

Its craving of need, with insistence compelling 

Anew the great gift of herself ; but he waited 

In patient endeavor the gift, that, belated, 

Must minister unto his need, if he ever 

Should know the sweet ministry more. Yet he never 

Felt utterly hopeless when once he had come 

Into healthier life. If to-day he were dumb, 

Some to-morrow might happily gladden him, when 

He could win her to hearing and trust. Until then 

He would do a man's work as he might, among men. 

There are souls who walk cheerfully with us, and lift 

Us to new aspirations by bountiful gift 

Of their courage and hope, who are braver than those 

Going forth into battle. Each day their repose 

Is but peace after striving. Each day they have fought 

A strong enemy hidden within, and have caught 

The sweet grace of their patience from victory won 

Over self. And each day the hard duty, best done, 

Is this facing a foe ever present, with hope 

Never yielding, and courage that always can cope 

With the haunting defiance, and conquer it. Add 

To the strife of to-day the remembrances mad 

Of a bitter defeat in the past, the pale ghost • 

Of a mastery cruel, whose torment is most 

In the memory yet like a prelude of hell, 

And we pity the soul that from victory fell; 

But we never can blame if again there be tears 

And laments for a victory lost. 



GEEALBINE. 305 

Through the years' 
Busy rounds, in much hope and much fearfulness, went 
Up and down uncomplainingly Percival Trent. 
As he labored, his love for the work best returning 
True wages of labor, he slowly was earning 
The prizes of fame. Without shaping his life 
For the public, a place in the front of the strife 
Between error and truth was forever accorded him. 
Men with brave honor of manhood rewarded him 
Out of their generous confidence, yielded 
Him heartiest praise for the blows that he wielded 
Defending the right, made him willing and strong 
When unwilling and weak he became ; and his song 
Grew as sweet and as clear as his eloquent speech 
Became braver and stronger. Its musical reach 
Was as broad as the longings of men, and it thrilled 
With new tenderness. Through it some mastery willed 
The deep feeling of hearts, till they listened and stirred 
In their stupor or pain as if touched by a word 
Out of heaven. And as always the singer hears much 
In his song that is lost to the many, some touch 
Of divinely beneficent blessing he knew, 
As he sang, that was never sent pulsating through 
Any heart but his own. 

He had sweet compensation 
For singing. A tender and hallowed elation 
Of spirit came to him in place of depression 
And pain. In his heart there was gladder possession 
Than doubt and distrust. And if silent he kept, 
Walking on for a day while all melody slept 
In his soul with no sunshine to thrill it and wake it, 
Some comfort came over his journey to make it 
Less dark : the warm thanks of glad hearts he had cheered 
Were borne to him in cheering, and life was endeared 

20 



306 GEEALBINE. 

To himself as for others he made it a gladder 

And holier thing. If his song became sadder 

At times than a lyric of hope, it was rare 

That it had not a hope hidden under, a care 

Reaching through it for others more hopeless, a thought, 

Out of hunger and heartache and loneliness caught, 

For some hunger of hope to make feast of. 

At times, 
Ringing clear as a chime through his musical rhymes, 
Came a glad Jubilate, — a song full of praise 
For the light in the night, for the glory of days 
Without shadow of dark, for the glow and the glory 
Of being. And often through legend or story 
Some homily ran in disguise, close akin 
To the teaching of Christ, that persuasive could win 
Where a plainer appeal might repel. So he preached 
A wide gospel of good. So he happily reached 
The closed ear of indifference often, and made 
The great heart of humanity thrill as he played 
On its quivering strings. So he brought to clear seeing 
The secret of life, as in 



BUILDING AND BEING. 

The king would build, so a legend says, 
The finest of all fine palaces. 

He sent for Saint Thomas, a builder rare, 
And bade him to rear them a wonder fair. 

The king's great treasure was placed at hand, 
And with it the sovereign's one command, — 

" Build well, O builder so good and great ! 
And add to the glory of my estate. 



GEBALBINE. 307 

"Build well, nor spare of my wealth to show 
A prouder palace than mortals know." 



The king took leave of his kingdom then, 
And wandered far from the haunts of men. 



Saint Thomas the king's great treasure spent 
In worthier way than his master meant. 

He clad the naked, the hungry fed, 
The oil of gladness around him shed. 

He blessed them all with the ample store, 
As never a king's wealth blessed before. 

The king came back from his journey long, 
But found no grace in the happy throng 

That greeted him now on his slow return, 
To teach him the lesson he ought to learn. 

The king came back to his well-spent gold ; 
But no new palace could he behold. 

In terrible anger he swore, and said 

That the builder's folly should cost his head. 

Saint Thomas in dungeon dark was cast, 

Till the time for his punishment dire were passed. 

Then it chanced, or the good God willed it so, 
That the king's own brother in death lay low. 

When four days dead, as the legend reads, 
He rose to humanity's life and needs. 



308 GERALDINE. 

From sleep of the dust he strangely woke, 
And thus to his brother the king he spoke : — 

"I have been to Paradise, O my king! 
And have heard the heavenly angels sing. 

" And there I saw, by the gates of gold, 
A palace finer than tongue has told; 



"Its walls and towers were lifted high 
In beautiful grace to the bending sky ; 



"Its glories, there in that radiant place, 

Shone forth like a smile from the dear Lord's face. 

"An angel said it was builded there 

By the good Saint Thomas, with love and care 

" For our fellow-men, and that it should be 
Thy palace of peace through eternity." 

The king this vision pondered well, 

Till he took Saint Thomas from dungeon-cell, 



And said, " O builder ! he most is wise 
Who buildeth ever for Paradise." 




XXXV. 




GREAT audience gathered in Rivermet 
Hall 

To hear words of reform. It was late 
in the fall, 

And the night had the glory of winter, 
with less 

Than its frostiness brilliant. 

The leading address 
Was to be, as a newspaper item declared, 
By a man of the people, — a man who had dared 
To be true to himself and all manhood, at peril 
Of popular favor ; who planted the sterile 
And adamant wayside with seeds of the right, 
And could wait for the harvest ; who, until to-night, 
Had not spoken for Rivermet hearing in years. 
If fine irony lurked in the language for ears 
Quick to catch it, the writer might well have been pardoned. 
The wayside of life has forever been hardened 
By selfishness, strewn with the rocks of dispute 
And denial and error ; and whoso would fruit 
The good seed of the truth must be patient indeed, 
If on ground that is stony he scatter his seed : 
Yet all harvests of time worth the reaping have grown 
From an acreage rocky where patience had strewn. 
In the crowded assembly sat Geraldine, flushed 



310 GEBALDINE. 

With expectancy eager; or haply she blushed 

At the conscious desire that was hers. She had schooled 

Her poor heart into silence, she thought; she had cooled 

Its hot burnings, or smothered them so they no more 

Could arouse the old fever of pain : but, before 

She looked into the face of the speaker, she knew 

That she waited with longing and hunger that grew 

Beyond all satisfaction she ever might find. 

She must love to the end, whether loving be kind 

Or be cruel; must love, and be keenly alive 

To her love ; and no long separation could shrive 

Her of loving, or bring her the absolute peace 

Of unlovingness. Yet she had found a release 

From the bitterest bondage of love. She had stood 

In the freedom of faith, and had seen life a good 

And a beautiful thing, though by sorrow beset : 

In a ministry sweet she had learned to forget 

Her own sorrowing need, and be glad : she had measure 

Of happiness, measure of peace, in the pleasure 

That grew out of daily bestowing. 

As Trent 
Came before them, the air was all smitten and rent 
By the storm of applause ; and her pulse quicker beat 
As she looked once again in his face from her seat 
Near the front of the hall. He was changed. He had older 
And manlier grown ; and a careful beholder 
Could see, in his smile a great weariness hide, — 
Not alone of the head, but the heart. The strong tide 
He had buffeted long, the bold errors without, 
And, within, the old struggle with passion and doubt, 
Had been wearing to soul and to brain. But his speech 
Held perennial freshness within it for each 
Of that waiting assemblage ; and round after round 
Of tumultuous cheers gave approval. 



GERALDINE. 311 

The sound 
Of his voice and the sight of his face were too much 
For her fancied control over self; and the touch 
Of swift tears on her cheek brought to Geraldine shame 
And distress. The keen gladness that thrilled her became 
But reproaches and bitterness. Longing unrest 
Was upon her, a need and a craving unguessed 
Before thus she was mastered. For so to be near him 
Was only half pleasure, half pain. Could she hear him 
Once breathing her name ; could she know that he spoke it 
With love undivided as faith ere he broke it, — 
Ah ! then she might go from him comforted, strong, 
And content in the will of the Lord. But to long 
For his answering love through a distance decreed 
By the wisdom of God, and to know that her need 
Never met a response ; to be conscious, not merely 
Of distance that held them apart, but as clearly 
To feel that no cry of his heart came to hers 
Through the spaces between, — ah ! the hope that defers 
Maketh sick ; but the hope that is hopeless can pain 
To sore agony. 

Hiding her face, and the rain 
Of hot tears that ran over it, Geraldine heard 
Without heeding what followed, yet melted and stirred 
To the deeps of her soul by the current magnetic 
That throbbed through the place. If the words were 

pathetic 
That came from those lips she had kissed, she but knew it 
Unconsciously. Over their meaning, and through it, 
Went pulsing a thrill and a message that spoke 
To her only ; that through the vast concourse awoke 
No such answer as hers. 

She was dimly aware 
That a gathering tempest of cheers blew the air 



312 GEEALBINE. 

Into waves of approval around her again, 
After silence that spoke as approvingly, when, 
Far above the applause that went echoing round, 
Striking sharp on the sense as a thunder of sound 
Amid hushes of stillness, she heard a wild cry 
With swift terror outwinging it, — 

" Fire ! " 

Then to fly 
Was the impulse of all. Women shrieked, and the faces 
Of men became ghastly. They rose in their places, 
And surged for the doors. A mad panic impended, 
And death brooded grim over life, when ascended 
A clarion call of command that arrested 
The tumult, and forced them to hear. He who breasted 
Their purpose insane stood as calm he had stood 
But a moment before, and entreated them. 

" Good 
And brave people," he said, " the great danger to you 
Is in haste ; for the flames are above us. Be true 
To strong manhood and womanhood now, would you live 
To be strong men and women to-morrow. I '11 give 
You the signal when haste is imperative. None 
Are in peril this moment. Pass out." 

He had won 
Them to reason ; and, standing there steady and cool 
As a master dismissing his turbulent school, 
By his mightier will he restrained them. 

And she 
Whom he loved and who loved him, as calmly as he 
Stood and looked at the crowd, little caring to go 
Since he stayed. She had torn off her veil, and a glow 
Of excitement illumined her face, while the light 
Of their tears glistened still in her eyes. The mad fright 
Had not seized her, although she had seen at the first 



GEBALBINE. 313 

The red flames lap the ceiling, and knew how the worst 
Might appall. But she felt in his presence a glad, 
Indefinable safety, that held her, and bade 
Her to wait. 

The crowd lessened. She lingered alone 
In that part of the hall. The swift flames having flown 
All along the bright fresco just over the stage, 
Leaping lower, ran hissing and snapping in rage 
At the man who stood under them, seeming to care 
For each one but himself. Seeing which, with a prayer 
For them all, she turned toward him, as only intent 
On the figures receding he seemed. 

"Mr. Trent! 
You forget your own safety," she cried. 

As he turned 
At her sudden appeal, close in rear of him burned 
The hot breath of the blaze. He sprang down to the floor, 
And as quickly flew to her. 

" I saw you before, 
And I saw that you waited," he answered her, speaking 
With tremulous haste. " It is time we were seeking 
Safe exit. Our ways lie together till death 
Shall divide us." 

Around them the feverish breath 
Of the flames became hotter and fiercer. Without 
There were shoutings and cheers ; but amid all the doubt 
That surrounded, one certainty came to them each, 
Clear and sweet as the sunlight, too holy for speech, 
And too happy for smiles. As he looked in her eyes, 
So she looked into his, out of patient and wise 
Revelation and hope ; and love's certain assurance 
Shone glad on them both with its pledge of endurance 
And faith. 

They were last to pass out from the smoke 



314 



GEEALBINE. 




That grew blinding and stifling, as after them broke 
Lurid torrents of fire In the street they were greeted 
By thundering cheers that were caught and repeated 
On quivering lips by the masses who waited 
To see him appear. 

The great building was fated 
For ruin and ashes. No effort could check 
The omnivorous demons that fed on its wreck 
Amid laughter demoniac, shrieking and screaming — 
Mad fiends of the flames. Like a horrible dreaming 
The picture became to these two as they stayed 



GEEALBINE. 315 

With the rest to behold it. 

At length, when there laid 
But a smouldering pile sobbing up to the night, ■ 
They went slowly away. 

" So the passion whose might 
Came between us burned out into ashes," he said. 
"Let the dead of our yesterdays bury its dead. 
You are mine for to-morrow and always ; and I 
Shall be true to a love never dead till I die." 

With the tenderest speech to his own she replied, — 
" The past narrows to nothing. To-morrow is wide 
As eternity. God, who is loving and just, 
Whispers, ' Ashes to ashes, and dust unto dust,' 
Over all that is gone. Let it sleep, while in trust 
We walk on through the future together." 

Above, 
The stars glistened in blessing. To be and to love 
Became deeper and truer and holier far, 
For the narrowing past. Every hallowing star 
Shed a glory beneficent on them, to tint 
The broad morrow with softness, and leave but a hint 
Of the night overflown in the mellower splendor 
Of day. 

So in reverent, final surrender 
Of each unto each, they uplifted the burdens 
Borne separate long, to grow glad with the guerdons 
Of victory sweeter than any they know 
Who are never twin-souled : so at last would they go 
In the strength of each other and God till the end, 
Seeing each within each truest lover and friend. 

They were wedded at Christmas. Next summer they went 
For a bridal trip down the St. Lawrence. Content 



316 GERALDTNE. 

Kept them company sweet. A far summer that seemed 
When he sailed there before ; and, if once he had dreamed 
Of such beauty and peace, it could hardly have been 
More indeed like a dream that he lingered within. 
He had drifted away from all memories keen ; 
And his life, like the river, ran smooth and serene : 
He had come where the current set calm to the sea, 
And the sum of each day was to love and to be. 
They were long at the Islands. 

One night as they tarried 
Trent, smiling but silent, to Geraldine carried 
A newspaper marked : and she read in it, — 

MARRIED. 

Last evening at eight, at the church of All Souls, 
In this city, by Bishop Delancy Canolles 
And the rector the Reverend Doctor Pardee, 
Major Archibald Mellen and Isabel Lee. 




IUN 12 1909 



LIBRARY 




